Cabo Boing - Blob on a Grid

Pitchfork 75

Brian Esser—the songwriter behind the synth-pop act Cabo Boing—seems fascinated with clowns. Aside from the announcement of Blob on a Grid, his debut full-length under the moniker after years playing in the synth-based bands Yip-Yip and Moon Jelly, his Tumblr page is mostly dedicated to the constantly grinning jesters. They beckon menacingly, floating in bodies of water; they show off arcade cabinets to small children; they play the saxophone; or they sit—in ceramic bust form—next to half-consumed jugs of milk. The archive as a whole is surreal, whimsical, and unsettling—a shrine that imagines the clowns as mythical figures from a Jodorowskyan nightmare.

It’s upsetting to say the least. But it’s also a strangely fitting accompaniment for the absurdist electronic music he’s made over the last couple of years as Cabo Boing—and especially the joy-buzzer beats that make up Blob on a Grid. He stuffs 12 tracks in just under 20 minutes, demonstrating a knack for slapstick comedy, garish colors, and even a few funny voices. These hallmarks of the art of clowning have turned the makeup-coated fools into figures of both wordless joy and unspeakable terror in the collective unconscious.

The pranks start from the opening moments of the tape’s first track “Asleep in the Saddle,” which layers several interlocking synth lines in a woozy pattern as sickening as a carousel on a cruise ship. Esser pitch-shifts a human voice into a goofy monstrosity and sings self-assured platitudes like “progress comes from within” and “subdue yourself and return to what is right.” The emotional effect is something like a group of oompa loompas covering OMD or the Residents leading a self-help seminar, which is to say that it’s both hilarious and horrifying.

That track, as well as a few of the album’s other longer tracks—like the neon vomit of the title track and “Nitwit of Gizmo”—show Esser’s predilection for writing pop songs in a long tradition of synth-toting goofballs. Like Mark Mothersbaugh’s electro-contortions or Animal Collective’s Sung Tongs-era surrealism or any of his many labelmates on the New York cassette imprint Haord, he has a keen ability to make music that’s both parasitically catchy and wholly unfamiliar.

But Esser isn’t content to just write singles, however ridiculous they may be. A large portion of the album’s tracklist is dedicated to stuff like the 45-second long “Elevator Pitch.” Its wheedling synth line wheels around erratically, like a unicycle on freshly buffed linoleum, before careening into the next song. Just as you start nodding your head to “Blob on a Grid,” Esser emerges with with the saccharine vocal tics and splattering percussion of “What Am I Bid”—a pie in the face as a punctuation mark.

Down to its title—and even the onomatopoetic prank of Esser’s moniker itself, which sounds something like an unfurling spring when you say it out loud—Blob on a Grid is an unrelenting collection of high-energy jokes. The way the intentionally gaudy synth lines fold into each other like a junkyard quiltwork can almost feel exhausting. But just when a song such as “Nitwit of Gizmo” begins to feel like a carnival ride gone on too long, Esser wisely cuts to another goofy composition. It’s proof in action that the difference between a good and a bad joke is… timing.