Brooklyn-based multi-disciplinary artist and queer flutist Cal Fish’s music is, perhaps predictably, eclectic. Aptly coined “flutegaze” on their Instagram, it calls to mind more organic strains of house like Call Super or Octa Octa, while at others it presents itself as a minimal art-pop sound most closely a la Bullion’s more recent works. Shades of Fifth Wave Emo’s experimentation also lend themselves to the project, with acts akin to Glass Beach and nouns seeming to share some DNA albeit with more angst and edge than Fish’s serene, self-assured delivery. Don’t let these cognates fool you, though: Fish’s music is wholly their own. They infuse this amalgamation of influences with a paradoxically shy take on maximalism– I probably shouldn’t add one more layer, but a flute solo mixed as if heard from two high school band practice rooms away would go stupid hard here, they seem to say – and the result is Cal Fish’s most recent album, Indecision Songs, a project that defies any presumptions of pretension by being tasteful, expressive, and just plain fun. 

On the album’s opener “Twirling,” their voice is disarmingly plain in that enchanting sort of way some of the best indie singer-songwriters are. Snug as a bug, the vocals nestle between modular synth squelches, flights of flute, and warm subtonal bass that warps under the weight of the jam-packed mixes’ incidental side-chaining. I’d be remiss not to note the various Pokémon cries sampled that, somewhat unbelievably, subvert kitschiness altogether. The reedy, echoey Zubat call in particular sounds super dope, even in spite of the flashbacks it evokes of being perpetually confused in caves (because wild Zubats are the worst and also big stupid meanies). This Pokémon motif is pleasantly augmented by a heartfelt interpolation of the original TV show’s theme song. Rather than Pocket Monsters, Fish is concerned with “love and tenderness,” sweetly singing, “to forget them is my real test / to gain them is my cause” – a line that would strike the listener as cloying if Fish didn’t seem so dang genuine, or the surrounding sound wasn’t as phenomenal as it is. In all, the opening track is a cartoon maelstrom of raw creative expression, neatly tempered by a skillful sense for aesthetic and composition alike. 

In a purely technical regard, Fish’s vocals are admittedly somewhat raw – but the distant, softened mix on them often suits their limited range well, and I found Fish’s delivery to be a perfect match for the tender lyrics and their instrumental nests beside. “2 Way Path (the dream is within u)” stands out in this regard, alliterative lines like “Heavy hearts, hurting hands / hungry for holding” a natural fit for Fish’s earnest delivery. “Patience flows / like muscle memory” is enveloped in a bashfully funkadelic house beat just before featured vocalist hi im home’s delightful hook, the title of the song’s parenthetical making for a perfect mantra. It’s all humbly wonderful, the way a recipe for brownies your family has made for about two-and-a-half generations comes out simply divine every time. So too does “When a Thought (feat. Alice Does Computer Music)” engage with this curated sense of sentimentality, aided by candid pop refrains generously layered in parking garage echo. A whimsical backing track highlights digital bells’ enchanting cerulean, paying homage to Super Mario 64’s “Dire Dire Docks. The tranquility is further enhanced by Becca Rodriguez’s vocals and their mixing. They’re lovingly tuned so as to not quite be swallowed by the surrounding colors, though only barely lucid and only at times. I’m reminded of grasping at diaphanous wisps of dialogue, remembered or confabulated, desperately trying to recall some fast-escaping dreamscape in the earliest moments of a morning.

Another highlight is the charmingly named “Big Bad Blanket of Protection.” As a noted weighted blanket enjoyed myself (sleep paralysis shmeep shmaralysis amiright), I was entranced by the track’s weighty, Cologne dance floor kick worthy of my blanket’s 8-pound heft, around which dance chiptune-adjacent synths and anon slaught of percussive stabs and hats. Caught in the song’s swirl are bit-crushed snippets of conversation, the pitch of which lends nicely to the sonic canvas, creating a lackadaisical sort of balance between the highs and the lows. The timbre and inflection of these vocals remind me of claire rousay’s introspective musings – an analog only strengthened by the following track “Longest Night of the Year” and its use of text-to-speech, notably used in a similar fashion on rousay’s excellent it was always worth it EP. But whatever sentiment present in the vocals here resting beneath the song’s sediment as they are, is ultimately indiscernible. The decadent leads and indulgent kits obfuscate the words’ edges, rendering them unintelligible – that is, until the last minute and a half or so of the song. The tempo suddenly dips, submerging the cacophony under distant David Wise-esque harps and the white noise of waves and thus allowing the delicate vocals to just barely rise to comprehension’s surface. Those too eventually fade out of sight, until all that’s left is the mundane found sound of a children’s toy that leaves me feeling forlorn, somewhat unsettled, and yet utterly satisfied. The song’s six-odd minutes fly by, time itself bending to the frame of a song with a title that sounds more like a homebrew DnD item than anything. It is, in a word, superdupercool.

Fish makes an impression with more than just their music. Their website greets visitors with impact font menus adorned with technicolor drop-shadows that coalesce Fish’s various creative endeavors. These include (but are certainly not limited to) clothing and sculptures for sale or commission and public sound installations. I thought their “Dynamic Listening Instrument” was particularly cool: It consists of a jury-rigged 8-track recording device mounted on what appears to be a car battery, all of which is in turn linked to several lengths of copper wire decorated with various pastel patterns. In the embedded video, Fish explains that a magnetic field generated around the lengths of wire allows for a white plastic bucket with a speaker mounted to the underside to play recordings as it swings through their area of effect. It’s a lot to take in, to be sure, and the slapdash appearance didn’t exactly inspire confidence–– but the device worked like a charm, reminding me of a room-sized, modular theremin, only controlled by the bucket rather than hands. The potential to program unique sounds or samples to each coil elevates the instrument far past mere gimmickry, in my opinion, and I found myself thrilled by the tech’s possible uses in larger scale sound installations such as those by Swiss artist Zimoun, or Aphex Twin’s swinging piano. If any of these ancillary projects were undertaken with even slightly less energy, creativity, or competency, it’d read as twee or eccentric; instead, Fish’s oeuvre is profoundly endearing and impressive to boot. 

It’s these novel approaches to familiar realms of sound that seem to inform Indecision Songs as a whole. No better illustration of this exists than the penultimate (and my personal favorite) track “Rise Again (i knw u c what dreams are made of).” With an intro that wouldn’t be out of place on any of the late great Mille Plateaux’s “Clicks & Cuts” glitch compilations, it’s no wonder that an ethereal interpolation of the theme song from Nickelodeon’s iCarly is somewhat unexpected. But Fish doubles down: amidst fragments of bashful laughter, the track transitions into a ghostly rendition of Hillary Duff/Lizzie McGuire’s anthem “This Is What Dreams Are Made Of” and back again, the sitcoms’ melodies perfectly harmonizing with the inner child. It’d all be ridiculous, juvenile, or simple nostalgia-bait – if it weren’t for both Fish being so obviously and awesomely sincere. It’s a microcosm of Indecision Songs’ strengths, exemplifying Fish and their music’s remarkable ability to duck past saccharinity and successfully tap into those feelings of wistfulness, while still being upbeat, sweet, and forward-thinking.

Written by Ben Schulte