Track Listing

1. Dead Armies - Caural
2. Re-Experience Any Moment You Choose - Caural,
3. Cold Hands - Caural, Hrishikesh Hirway
4. I Won't Race You - Caural
5. Hallucination Broadcast - Caural
6. Transition Suite, Pt. 1: Lady - Caural,
7. Transition Suite, Pt. 2: Papilion - Stuart Bogie, Caural, Colin Stetson
8. Make Us Invisible - Caural
9. Cruel Fate of Spring - Paul Amitai, Caural,
10. Sending You Colors - Caural,
11. Only Time Will Know - Caural, Jacob Croegaert

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #341951 in Music
• Released on: 2006-10-17
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Customer Reviews

Doesn't get any better than this
Zachary Mastoon (otherwise known as Caural) is not solely one of the more talented beatsmiths around but also one of the more innovative as well, as his latest release, Mirrors For Eyes, confirms in spades. How many other DJs out there can you name who can add shoegazer flair to their hip hop/jazzy beats & come out a winner every time (most of the time, anyway...lol)? Well, there's only one duder I know of who can give us an album which is dreamy, breezy & danceable & that man is none other than Caural.

Whether he's on an African polyrhythmic kick (Dead Armies), shoegaze gone the way of hip hop & all other points in between (Re-Experience Any Moment You Choose, Sending You Colors, Cold Hands, I Won't Race You), in chill out mode (Cruel Fate of Spring), one thing is clear about Mr. Mastoon: he knows how to send the listener colorful paintings of sound as much as he knows which colors to use, where to throw them into the mix & when.

I loved 2002's Stars on My Ceiling a lot, still do in fact. But with Mirrors For Eyes Caural has only gotten better at what he does best: making some of the most mindblowing dream-hop (hip hop beats after a run-in with shoegaze) ever to grace this planet.

It's on Mush Records... of course, it's good.
Mush is a fantastic label. And out of it's broad stable of open-minded, next level artists, Zachary "Caural" Mastoon stands out as a bonafide genius. If the cut-and-paste beats made by Daedelus are cinematic, Caural's compositions are visionary to the point of trance inducing. His explorations of fat beats, dusty samples, and off kilter programming easily makes him one of the best headphone album producers ever to pick at a Salvation Army record bin. In fact, with the backing of such virulent and poignant instrumentals, the adequate vocals laid down by the likes of Hrishikesh Hirway and Jacob Croegaert essentially end up detracting from the final product. It's not that the vocals are bad, per say, but that Caural's beats tell more than enough of a story on their own without the need for lyrical illustration. Though Racecar and Paul Amital's styles are a bit closer to the mark, none of the vox are on the same level of surreality as Mr. Mastoon (though, now that I think of it, Doseone and him could make one hell of an album). Even still, they definitely aren't enough of a hindrance to stop Mirrors For Eyes from being one of the year's best laptop hip-hop albums... nay, best albums period.

Mirrors for Eyes
From the bumping hip-hop polyrhythm of its first song, "Dead Armies," it's clear that Mirrors for Eyes represents a new era for Caural, one in which the young Brooklyn producer is not content to remain sounding like Daedelus without a shtick. By turns lush and hard-edged, Mirrors for Eyes recognizes the unlikely connections between disparate musical styles and milks them for all they're worth, whether it's the Foot Locker shoegaze of "Re-Experience Any Moment You Choose," the jazzy hip-hop breakdown of "Transition Suite, Part II," or the remarkably tender soul-glitch mashup "Cruel Fate of Spring." Caural's heart is in the same place it was on Stars on My Ceiling, but fuller production, more adventurous drum programming and greater attention to detail turn an album that could have ended up unfocused into something diverse and dazzling to behold.