It's rare that I recommend anything highly without certain caveats—maybe you're only going to enjoy this album when you're melancholy, or maybe the intensity of it all is really intended for Friday nights. There are so many kinds of listeners in the world, it's impossible to capture them all with one simple recommendation. And yet, the unreal new tape from Santa Barbara solo musician Cave Babies has something that can appeal to all: sweetly-strummed acoustic guitar, lo-fi bedroom closeness, light-hearted lyrics, and a package that's so terse and compact that even if it doesn't reach you in a direct way, it'll have flashed by before you get a chance to judge. Accomplish Nothing is a dream in some ways—it is remarkably benevolent, as if songwriter Josh Redman wrote the entire thing as a gift to his listeners, and each lyric comes with it an innocence that actually refreshes instead of annoys, and can't be tampered. The highlight is the nuanced and freewheeling track “Art Is Hard”, which Redman reveals to not be true at all. But really—you have twenty minutes—just start from the beginning and move through the full thing.
Some of the record feels like The Ataris, some of it feels like Daniel Johnston, and other parts remind of Younger Lovers. The full LP is available for cassette purchase through Seattle's Lost Sound Tapes.
