Peruvian experimental artist M. Caye Castagnetto just released their debut album Leap Second through Osees frontman John Dwyer’s label Castle Face. It’s an idiosyncratic mix of collage-style samples and psych-influenced pop music that sounds like little else out there. Today we’re premiering the lastest single from the album, “Hands On The Business” as well as it’s bizarre and eye-catching new video that was directed by Ciriza.
Castagnetto created the album over the course of a five year period, recording samples alongside a variety of artists including Beatrice Dillon and the late Aileen Bryant. They were influenced by the split-life of living in Lima, Peru and the isolated desert outpost of Twentynine Palms near Joshua Tree, creating a collection of tracks that are as difficult to classify as they are enjoyable to experience.
“Hands On The Business” opens with a distant, slightly blown-out guitar riff that has a bit of a reggae influence, though if it were played by a psychedelic garage rock band. As the rhythmic riff comes into greater focus, the low, chant-like vocals enter the mix, creating an eerie, entrancing vibe. The video fits that atmosphere perfectly, first showing a random image of a man posing alongside a wax doll from Madame Toussaud’s, grinning and laughing as he gets intimate with the stationary figure. The clip quickly switches gears into its main theme, which features a hand draped in a variety of materials, ranging from flesh-like goo to crusty, wax-like material. The hand writhes about for the first few frames, then the video cuts to a scene on farmland with rolled hay bales, from which the hands pluck a tiny delicate flower.
What is the meaning of all of this? “Rejecting the business of Business by remembering the erotic truths found in luscious tactility,” said director Ciriza.
“This song was written after going to an opening event at the State park in Chinatown, Los Angeles,” said Castagnetto. “After hearing real estate agents discuss the site’s beautification, armed with portfolios of landscaping pathologies: plants separated from the ground, followed by animals and humans in unbroken sequence.”
Leap Second track list
01. “I Invented Disco”
02. “Stopping You”
03. “Slippery Snakes”
04. “Mi Mentira”
05. “All Points North”
06. “Amor Cabra”
07. “Hands On The Business”
08. “Until”
09. “Street Trees, Evening Green”
10. “Chase Water, Blue Moon”
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