Album Review: Caro Khan- Pyronauts

Full disclosure—a long time ago, before I was a cool rabbit dad, and before my crippling anxiety became a real issue that hindered my ability to do anything fun, I was in a band, and my band played a show with one of the members of Caro Khan. Back in the dark ages of early 2010, TJ was performing with his brother Jayson, under the name Transit Gal.

Times have certainly changed, though. TJ and Jayson Whitmore no longer live in the Twin Cities, and Transit Gal shifted from an act to a record label, but has now been shelved—the brothers Whitmore now reside in Maine, where Jayson operates Penumbra Studios, and TJ (along with ANOTHER brother, Chris) is now focused on a new project: Caro Khan.

On their Facebook page, Caro Khan lists their genres as “Hip hop, electronic, and indie.” And they really aren’t kidding around—they blend those three specific styles together, amongst other things, throughout the course of their full-length debut LP, Pyronauts.

At times, calling to mind the more accessible and melodic moments of Deftones frontman Chino Moreno’s various side projects—Team Sleep and †††—as well as elements of early trip-hop artists like Massive Attack and Tricky, TJ and Chris seamlessly and impressively weave back and forth between very aggressive sounding hip-hop (“Mudblood” and “Badman”), 90’s alt rock (“V838”), some kind of free-form jazz/spoken word (“Superheroes”), Album Leaf-esq restrained post-rock (“Stuck in an Elevator”), and more.

On paper, an album that does so much genre hopping may be a bit of a red flag, or it may seem like it’s going to come out messy—but it doesn’t, and that is thanks in part to Jayson Whitmore serving as producer and mixer on Pyronauts, so even the extreme shifts in dynamics works because of the cohesive sound.

Another reason that Pyronauts succeeds is due to the tremendous talent showcased by TJ and Chris. It takes some serious skill to pull something like this off, and to make it look so effortless. It was actually a little jarring for me at first upon my initial listen—the sharp turn from “Mudblood”’s very chaotic, ominous sounding hip-hop atmosphere, through an instrumental segue track, into the dreamy indie rock swirls of “V838” took me by complete surprise.

Caron Khan, as a duo, is obviously unafraid of risk taking, as this amalgamation of genres and styles shows, and it also shows that in performing and songwriting, the brothers Whitmore both are able to take their craft seriously, but maintain a sense of humor about themselves—best exemplified in some of the clever lyrics on the hip-hop tracks.

A pretty perfect soundtrack to the tail end of the summer, Pyronauts is like a mixtape made by that friend of yours that has the most eclectic taste in music ever; but in this instance, that friend made all of the music by themselves.

Pyronauts will be self-released on Saturday, August 9th. If you live in Portland, ME (or close to it) check out their LP release extravaganza at The Flask Lounge.