After a Man or Astro-Man? show in 1995 at Einstein A Go-Go, one of the only all-ages venues in the area, Chuck Smyth and Pete Cochrane crashed at Cash Carter’s house, as guests of his brother Dennie. They all bonded in the noisy ether coming from college radio and vintage underground surf music. Chuck was the last to wake the following morning. He stumbled into the living area where everyone was socializing, and he angrily insisted that they had betrayed him by eating a pancake breakfast without him. By noon, the confusion was sorted and Chuck’s inexplicable anger was abated. In the process, a strange bond had formed in the group. By noon, Cash had usurped his brother’s friends and started a band using his brother’s drum kit.
Rumbling away in a small garage, Cash built his frenetic, thundering drum style around Chuck’s fast-twitch searing lead rhythms and melodies fertile with nervous energy. Inside those urgent drums and angular chords came their melodic hooks, catchy and strong, laden with unexpected twists. They released a 7” record, an EP entitled The Search for the Edible Man (1997), and their first full-length record, The Cadets (1999).
As the century drew to a close, Cochrane departed and the Cadets took on bassist Chad Matheny (aka Emperor X), a dynamo of creativity and sonic agitation. Also joining was Isaac Bear, brilliantly color-washing in the open spaces with expertly placed keys and guitars. The result was a delicately balanced collage of daydreams and found sounds dangling on the hilt of a steel edge. They followed up with the full-length Conditions on Alpha Atoll (2001), and another EP, Finding the Straight and Level (2002).
This lineup toured Japan and all along the US east coast until 2007, issuing
their third full-length record, On the Death of Science as a Major World Religion (2006).
Scattering away to different cities with opportunities, jobs and families, they went on hiatus.
More than a decade later, Chuck and Isaac again began to swap recordings for new songs, and Cash joined them for collaborative rehearsals. By that point, Matheny had relocated to Berlin, fully invested in Emperor X, so a call went out to Donny Dusinberre, a veteran of the same scene the Cadets grew up in. Delivering pounding basslines alongside his high, wistful voice, he fell in quickly. Now they are back at full strength and pushing into new territory they only saw on the horizon as teenagers.
The Cadets’ music continues to be delightfully peculiar and full of immediacy, arriving at your ear having skidded briskly across the table yet perfectly upright and nary a drop wasted. Their sonic experiments produce songs that possess a rare energy that conjures the early days of rock & roll, sci-fi adventures, and diary entries never intended for the light of day. Lyrics filter larger themes through a tilted and tinted lens of wide-eyed fantastic reverie. Brainwashed spies, mythical chimera, desperate refugees, and jilted lovers all become protagonists and truth tellers.
TOUR DATES
Oct. 10 – Jacksonville, FL – The Walrus
