Old Time Relijun

Local band Cloacas (klo-kuss) has performed a neat trick on the unsuspecting Americana/bluegrass-obsessed citizens of Santa Fe: They've managed to insert themselves into the scene under the guise of the aforementioned styles while all the while exposing concert-goers to the more experimental aspects of the acoustic music world. That's right, nerds—they fooled your asses!

"Santa Fe's scene is so oversaturated with folk music and white people blues, so you'd think that a band like Cloacas couldn't really break into a scene like that, but I think we've proven that we actually can do that," Cloacas' banjo player Johnny Bell tells SFR. "There's structure to our songs, but we hold onto this experimental aesthetic, and we started playing these three-hour bar gigs a couple years back as a kind of joke and to maybe make a couple bucks, but people turned out to like it, so it has actually been pretty easy to book a lot of shows."

But oh, how they've changed over the years. Bell readily admits that the early days of the band don't quite stack up to the direction and evolution they've achieved of late. Events such as childbirth and the loss/addition of members certainly played a role in the overall Cloacas gestalt, but like any band worth its salt, it could simply be that they've matured with time. This is most evident in the seven-piece unit's recent release, EP-onymous, a bite-sized taste of the prolific Cloacas output. There's a certain gypsy-jazz foundation found within the four tracks, but a subtle worldliness sneaks up from the corners and inundates the songs with clever use of singing saw and clarinet. Think of the newest Cloacas material as old-timey mountain music pressed through a gothic Americana screen and merged with the melodic elements of Yann Tiersen's Amélie soundtrack. It makes for music that can be very country or very poppy, at times, but also inexplicably haunting and beautiful. It's almost as if the different elements at play have no business working together, but they somehow do, in unsuspecting ways. Take Bell's banjo playing. He is open about his lack of formal training in the instrument, so whereas a more educated player might let loose and shred it up à la Earl Scruggs, Bell plays it almost like he would finger-pick a guitar. It's a risky choice to use an ancient instrument in nontraditional ways, but it pays off for the band and sets the stage for their ultimate unspoken agreement—nothing is as it seems, and no one musician is the focus of the group.

"It's definitely a collaboration, and we definitely have a way of communication that allows us to openly discuss what works and what doesn't," Bell says. "I don't want to say our sound is so developed that there isn't room for change, but there's a mutual collaborative aesthetic that we know as Cloacas, and it allows us to develop new material quickly."

He ain't kidding, as the EP represents the smallest taste of what the band has on deck. A yet-to-be-titled full-length album recorded with experimental arts/music collective High Mayhem is being aimed for a release sometime this fall, and the band is hitting the road in the meantime to test some of the songs out live. In addition to their inclusion in the upcoming Santa Fe/Denver music exchange with the Mile High City's Underground Music Showcase, Cloacas will be performing in small towns on their way up, with a kickoff show this week at the increasingly popular Taos Mesa Brewing.

"We want to see how we're received and perceived outside of Santa Fe, because it's very easy to think you're so loved when you stay here, but then other markets don't give a shit," Bell says with a nervous laugh. "We can't fall into that false impression that we're better than we are, which is why we need to test the waters."

Joining Cloacas for the journey to Broncoville are local acts Thieves & Gypsys, Luke Carr's Storming the Beaches with Logos in Hand and more, show mates Bell says he feels "honored to be shoulder to shoulder with." That's fair enough, and though his modesty is absolutely sincere, it's pretty safe to say that Cloacas fills a niche some of us didn't even know we were missing.

Cloacas
7:30 pm Wednesday, July 22. No cover
Taos Mesa Brewing
20 ABC Mesa Road,
(575) 758-1900

Santa Fe Reporter