Track By Track: Cale Parks – Lagoon Fool

The current drummer of Yeasayer, Cale Parks has recently dropped his second solo release Lagoon Fool which is a four track EP that truly captures the essence of spatial awareness. Filling your head and your world with atmospheric sounds, each track will reverberate inside your skull as if it were a bouncy ball being thrown into a cathedral. We had Mr Parks talk us through the EP in colours, seasons and more to help you get an idea of where all the sounds come from;

Appalachia

Colour: Green and Blue. The green represent the color of the mountain and the blue represents the sky behind it. 

Season: Spring 

Inspiration: The skeleton of this track was formed after my Grandmother in Tennessee passed away. I was at her home, on the farm where I spent much of my childhood. I knew that they would sell the farm after she died, so I walked around with a field recorder taking audio sample memories of things that I wanted to remember. I recorded a can of spray paint that I found under some dirt in the barn. It had not been used for 10 or more years, but it still sprayed. I recorded some large stones that I walked over everyday. I recorded the sound of the iron fence door locking shut. Then I sat on her front porch for the last time, looking at the silhouette of the Appalachian foothill across the field from their house and pieced together the beat for this track using all of those (literal) field sounds. 

Setting: I was on a front porch in the middle of rural Tennessee. I think this has an early morning feel to it. It is the start of something. I’m glad it is the opening track on the EP. 

Big Hills

Colour/s: Gray surrounded by blurry green. 

Season: Spring, when everything smells great and no one has a tan yet. 

Inspiration: Driving around the Tennessee foothills every weekend, spring break and summer in my childhood, going to see family. Rolling hills, rolling synths, enveloping each other. Rolling, peaks and valleys is the key theme here.

Setting: I made this at my home studio in Brooklyn. Location is a state of mind.

Jade

Colour/s: The title itself is the color, Jade. 

Season: Spring or Summer.

Inspiration: I had a vivid imagination as a kid. I would make up characters. I found a bunch of my Grandmothers costume jewelry, she had this giant ring with a jade stone inside it, I used to wear it and pretend it was the ring form this fantasy film, Beastmaster…. they also had a piano in their house that was never, ever in tune. I played it, nonetheless. There’s a lot of piano on this track.

Setting: I came up with the idea when I played the initial piano melodies to a click track, then built the track around the piano part. Ideal listening would be background music inside a tent with many satin pillows and tapestries, eating grapes and drinking wine. 

Lagoon Fool

Colour/s: Clear water reflecting a green background.

Season: Summer!

Inspiration: I initially made the beat before a trip to Los Angeles for a gig, but as the track came together, it reminded me of going to a creek and swimming hole with my grandfather in TN. The term Lagoon usually brings up an image of a tropical, blue island scene, surrounded by sand, but if you don’t grow up with these locations, you find a special bliss in the blind pleasure of wherever you may be. Hillbilly swimming holes, Lagoon Fools. 

Setting: Listen when you’re in a special, warm place with friends, or alone, chill. 

Cale Parks' EP Lagoon Feel is out now via Hakt Recordings.