A cowbell, an Autoharp, and an electric guitar—it’s not the trio of instruments most people starting a rock band would put on their must-have list. But these are the elements that mark the music of the aptly named Oakland band Cryptacize, the trio of Michael Carreira, Chris Cohen, and Nedelle Torrisi. Cryptacize is making some of the most beautiful and mysterious music around.

The band’s debut, Dig That Treasure, released in early 2008 on Asthmatic Kitty, is obviously pop, but it’s unlike any pop record you’ve ever heard. After years of hearing bands hype their ‘new approach’ while they turn out variations on the same tired formula, it’s refreshing to hear the genuinely asymmetrical music of Cryptacize. On their MySpace page, the band says its sound is flamenco/R&B/showtunes and it’s as apt a description as any. “I’ve been writing songs since I was a kid,” Torrisi says. “I wanted to play violin in a symphony orchestra. I wanted to be in an all-girl R&B group. I wanted to write and perform Broadway musicals. There are tapes of me singing heartfelt romantic ballads when I was eight. Our family was big on lessons—singing lessons, clarinet lessons, violin lessons. I stopped classical violin and picked up guitar to start making up more songwriterly songs when I was 18.” Before Cryptacize, Torrisi recorded several folk/pop albums as Nedelle and was known in Bay Area music circles for her pure, luminous vocal style as well as her heartfelt songwriting.

Cryptacize evolved out of the musical and personal partnership of Torrisi and Cohen. The couple met in the Curtains, a Cohen band that hired Torrisi to play rhythm guitar. Cohen is a lead guitar player with a reputation for stretching the boundaries of the instrument. He played drums as a boy, which may account for his oddly percussive style. He’s played in several hard-to-categorize groups like Deerhoof and Natural Dreamers. Some called them spazz rock bands. “I had a drumkit when I was three,” Cohen recalls. “I was driving my parents crazy banging on anything I could get my hands on, so my father bought me real drums. My dad was into musical theater and classical music; my mom was an opera singer and Broadway actress, so there was a lot of music around. I still play drums, but never got any good until I got a guitar. I’ve played in bands, but was always frustrated. I want to get out of writing pop/rock sounding music, but that’s the template we grew up with. I sometimes wish I was a classical or opera composer where the patterns aren’t as rigid.”

Cohen and Torrisi’s collaborations in the Curtains led to discussions of what a band could be. Although their styles were different, their ideas about freeform composition were in accord. They left the Bay Area to find a place where they could rehearse and explore new ways of writing songs. They wound up across the street from the C&H Sugar Factory in Crockett, CA. “We moved there as an experiment,” Torrisi says. “I wanted to be someplace rural.”

Living next to a sugar rending facility was more than the couple bargained for. “The scent of burning sugar and chemicals spewed into the apartment and the factory horns shook the building, which started tilting to one side. I thought we might start growing another leg or something.” One morning the word “cryptacize” popped into Torissi’s head. They decided to move back to the Bay Area and find bandmates before the sugar did any more damage to their cellular structure.

Back in Oakland, Cohen and Torrisi turned on their computer one day to find a YouTube link to a solo cowbell performance by percussionist/drummer Michael Carreira. “I tend to fall in love with an instrument and really work at it,” Carreira explains. “I have a bell handmade by a guy in the Bronx, Cali Rivera. It’s mostly used in Latin music, Cuban music in particular. When I heard Chris and Nedelle were looking for musicians, I sent them a link to my video.”

“All we could see were [Michael’s] hands and a cowbell,” Cohen says. “I thought if he could do that in our band, it’d be awesome.” The first day the trio got together, something clicked. They decided that a trio without a bass player or a drum kit would push the music into uncharted territory.

Carreira was born in a small Rhode Island town. “My parents had maybe 10 albums that they never listened to. I saw bands on TV when I was about six and wanted to be the drummer. I studied percussion with a teacher who had me write out charts of drum parts. I remember charting out the drums on Michael Jackson’s ‘Billie Jean.’ It’s amazing how little happens; there’s only one fill, but it hits you in the gut. The thought of making up a perfect little part like that got me involved in composition.” Carreira played in rock bands that never got out of the garage while growing up, but he was more interested in jazz and modern classical music. “I spent so much time studying dead people. Finding there were people writing orchestral music today was exciting. It was a field where composers could do whatever they wanted to do.” Carreira came to California to get a graduate degree in composition at Mills College, but the open-ended experiments of Cryptacize lured him back into the world of pop music. “They were working on songs, although they weren’t very fleshed out when we started playing together. We did a lot of work to make them strange, without people hearing how strange they really are.”

The band made Dig That Treasure using Cohen’s Mac laptop. Despite the electric guitar textures, the album has a quiet, folky singer-songwriter vibe, with a trace of the Broadway musical drama that Torissi and Cohen love. Jarring guitar stabs and measured Autoharp strums open “Stopwatch”, which details the wreckage of a troubled relationship. Carreira’s clave mimics the ticking of a clock, while Torrisi sings mournfully of lost love and unfinished business. Torissi’s fragile vocals and an instantly memorable chorus make “Heaven Is Human” a perfect pop tune, with Cohen’s asymmetrical guitar and Carreira’s irregular percussion complimenting a lyric celebrating the joy of life’s ordinary moments. “Water Witching Wishes” calls to mind a Spaghetti Western soundtrack. Twangy guitar overtones and Autoharp strums shimmer in the air, while Cohen sings lead in a voice that sounds like a man on the verge of a nervous collapse. “I sang a lot as a kid and drove my sister crazy,” Cohen says. “So I quit and only started singing again recently. For me, voice is a new instrument, newer than guitar anyway. I just try to sing as though I’m speaking to someone.” The expected hippie dippy vibe is absent from “Cosmic Sing-a-long”, a Cohen/Torissi duet that isn’t the least bit psychedelic, although it is the most deliriously happy tune on the album. It brings to mind a scene from a 1940s Republic cowboy film. Carreira taps out a trotting horsey beat, Cohen plays sparse Spaghetti Western fills, and the harmony vocals twinkle like newborn stars. The video the band made for the tune is as charming and quirky as the band and the album itself.

“All bands are unique,” Cohen concludes modestly. “Just as all people are unique. Our three personalities come out in the music, so Cryptacize has to sound like itself. What we hope for is music that takes you on a journey. We want to create a musical world and invite people to join us in it. If you think w
e’re unique, then I’m flattered. I don’t think everyone will agree with you, but that’s the goal.”

Watch: “Cosmic Sing-a-long” [at youtube.com]

Listen: Various Tracks  [at myspace.com]

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