Review: Social Caterpillar - When you woke up to Dances of Light

Label: Softseed Music

Record labels are a really cool thing. I'd call myself an open-minded lover of music. I too get the impression, that the older I'm getting, the more receptive I get for various styles of music. Still, the time of day is too short to listen to all those thrilling bands out there, especially in today's age when their record is in my playlist within two clicks. So I mostly tend to dig deeper into my hole, that hole of HC/Punk/Emo. When I manage to get out sometimes, seeing the light of day, I intuitively decide to dive into my second hole, eyes closed: Hip-Hop...

And that's where record labels begin to be cool. Every now and then they grab me by the hair and drag me out of one of these two holes, drive my head into glimpse of the sun and make me realize that there's more music than another awesome Screamo record put out by Zegema Beach Records or a totally hidden Memphis tape out of the 90s that essentially sounds like all the other hidden Memphis tapes of the 90s. Softseed Music managed to do just that with SOCIAL CATERPILLAR's new album "When you woke up to Dances of Light". I can safely say that I wouldn't know this band if it wouldn't be for Softseed Music. 

Coming from a HC/Punk-background themselves, SOCIAL CATERPILLAR play pretty quiet and soft music. They call it Psychedelic-Chamber-Folk. They use an acoustic guitar and some samples every now and then, but what really makes a difference is the frequently present violin/cello as well as the tinderly played horns. It's a homogeneous composition by default and extremely tight throughout. "When you woke up to Dances of Light" is a record that's all about the mood. It's a dark mood, capable of giving you goose bumps. It's mysterious in some parts, and deeply depressing in other parts... but it's also surprisingly uplifting at specific moments. The whole concept of the album is that of death, darkness, existentialism, the sense of life and mental illness, yet also about the upsides of going through some shit, when you're once again able to appreciate the light after crossing the death valley. Just like the record title says "...when you woke up to Dances of Light". Or to quote an awesome line of "Hymns of Awakening":

Devoid of genuine 

It's hard to look anymore 

Silver spoon 

Riddled with a hole

The four-piece is able to find a pretty solid balance between heartfelt and artistic. There are various interludes and instrumental parts thrown all over the record and they will most surely polarize, more often then not they will get shit on. Naturally I'm the right person for this job, but it's different on "When you woke up to Dances of Light". SOCIAL CATERPILLAR carefully worked on these sections. They add a lot to the atmosphere and fit in perfectly into the whole flow. Just listend to the second interlude "(Birds and Elephants)" and how magnificently it paves the way for the final stretch of the record, that is ringed in by the silent beginning of "Hymns of Awakening". The unsettling but in the same way very dramatic and emotional intro is cool as well and somehow manages to present the essence of the record within two minues eventhough the audio has not much in common with SOCIAL CATERPILLAR's core sound.

It would probably take too much space to talk about the six songs, so I guess I'll leave it at that. They're all pretty much worth it, from the already familiar "Anti-Prayer" to the beautiful quasi-title-track "Time Warp No. 1" to the shizophrenic but oh so breathtaking "Today Human Emotions probably initiate Tears" to the weirdly uplifting closer "Senseless like a Sun", that wraps up the book movie record in a fitting kind of way. "When you woke up to Dances of Light" is just that, a record akin to a good, intriguing book or a good, coherent film, walking the tightrope between emotionally moving and mentally demanding.

...now you probably ask how I came to know Softseed Music, when they're releasing music like that?! Well, essentially it's owed to the same act that I described above. Someone pulled the guy that is running the label out of his hole and dragged him into the sunlight. That someone was the band itself. And the guy who's running the label is usually listening to Screamo nonstop. Hell, he eats, breathes and shits Screamo. And he was desperate after discovering SOCIAL CATERPILLAR. So desperate, that he had to form another record label to release their record. Now you can probably guess how good it has got to be. So, what are you waiting for? Get out of your hole, now!

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