Music from Minnesota
1. Bring Us Down (3:59)
2. Easy As It Came (4:24)
3. Even When You Know (6:05)
4. Shepherd (6:37)
5. Like A Stone (2:54)
6. Another Tide Of History (6:23)
7. Step Inside You (6:59)
8. Disco Intro (1:15)
9. Disco Jam (6:10)
10. Shoemaker (3:56)
1. Say It’ll Get Better (4:50)
2. Bittersweet (3:41)
3. Shadow of a Cloud (6:44)
4. Imagination (6:49)
5. Self-Inflicted Changes (5:59)
6. Never Saw the Sun (3:44)
7. Nothing Below (9:05)
8. Doesn’t Help Us Now (10:55)
INSPIRATION
Shadow of a Cloud is about the forces that move the world: coincidence, time, choices, truth, love. In many ways it is an acceptance that change is the only constant. The title is a direct reference to Joseph Campbell’s Power of Myth, when Campbell recounts a letter written by a heroic Native American chief who acknowledges native culture and memories are to become merely a shadow of a cloud.
The band wrote the feels over a two month period after extended time apart due to the initial Covid lockdown. The following summer, the band hauled gear to Gol-Wop, Frey’s and Wolfe’s family cabin in the Northwoods of Minnesota, for an immersive recording experience. The music is straight-ahead rock, with alternative, psychedelic, and ambient elements. The album conjures David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas and Impressionist art.
1. Nomad (4:21)
2. Ship in a Bottle (4:58)
3. Hand Me Down (4:53)
4. To Be Alive (7:28)
5. Clothesline A (5:38)
6. Clothesline B (3:14)
7. Sure She Needs You (7:24)
8. Up with the Sun (8:16)
INSPIRATION
Hand Me Down is Kazyak’s third LP and as indie rock as ever. This time the music is brighter, more optimistic, and puts the band’s strong personal connections on full display. Peter Frey (guitar) and Andy Wolfe (guitar) are cousins. Nick (drums) and Mat (bass) are brothers. Pat Hayes’ (synth) and Frey’s moms were college roommates and their dads have been best friends since childhood.
The album is a coming of age and the deep roots yield a personally and musically intimate experience. The concept is about how traits, habits, and memories are passed along from one’s parents, how one applies those learnings to the present, and ultimately what one leaves behind for future generations. The songs explore feelings of love, loss, adventure, addiction, and staying the course.
1. Contravertical (6:08)
2. Discover (6:02)
3. Paper Bird (5:40)
4. Camouflage (5:08)
5. Zombie Dream (4:35)
6. Smoke Jumper (5:11)
7. Rocket (2:02)
8. Be the Sun (7:33)
INSPIRATION
Odyssey is Kazyak’s most pioneering work yet, following the Happy Camping EP (2017) and the Reflection LP (2018). On the surface, Odyssey is extremely satisfying indie rock ear candy. Dig a little deeper and find intricate connections between lyrical, visual and aural elements. From guitarist/songwriter Peter Frey’s perspective, the album is “more rugged, forward-looking and psychedelic than our past releases. It’s the first record we’ve recorded live, and is channeling inspiration from Patagonia and themes from Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth. It attempts to capture the desire to explore and to take the listener to the edge of discovery.”
SOUND
Kazyak is no stranger to taking chances with sound and Odyssey is proof. The songwriting is on the same level as past releases, but the focus here is that they’ve turned up the psychedelic knob several notches – wetter vocals, an orchestrated Prophet V and Juno 106 synth-combo, and heroic guitar hooks, held together by solid drums and bass. The album contains a countless string of highlights, beginning with Contravertical, a deep dive into the unknown. The fourth track, Camouflage, is a heavy-hitting stoner anthem about trying to blend in (things are moving really fast / it’s all part of the plan / said I’d kick the habit but I just kick the can). Zombie Dream, is the obvious single portraying a slow-core, zombie apocalypse dreamscape whose chorus cops the opening lines from Bob Dylan’s Mama You’ve Been on My Mind. And finally, Smoke Jumper offers a floaty, high-powered jam where listeners will feel swept off the ground by a strong breeze (feel the force of the lift / the direction and drift). With Odyssey, Kazyak gives listeners plenty to explore.
“Music with the ability to transport a listener out of their body and into a whole new space is rare, but Kazyak’s new album Odyssey, accomplishes this feat with relative ease. As I sat down with earbuds to let this music flow through me completely, I lost all sense of time. Odyssey will take you on a trip so delightful that you won’t even know how long you’ve been gone, and in that lies its true beauty. It may seem simple a first, but it is something that you will come back to once you realize that there is so much left to unpack.” – Jason DeMoe, Music in Minnesota
“We find this crew going pomo psych and turning the levels up a notch as they embark on a trip inspired by a trip. A real, modern head trip, this is the stuff that’s right down the alley for people looking for outré music to feed their heads.” – Midwest Record 
Friday Five (5/16/2019) + Song of the Day (8/16/2019) – 89.3 the Current 
“Odyssey is a dreamy, crunchy soundscape, with lyrics that cite the Mariana Trench and the far reaches of outer space, while leveraging tape audio from Joseph Campbell’s ‘The Power of Myth.’ What’s really cool is that Kazyak doesn’t stay in any mood/mode too long.” – Jonathan Widran, JW Vibe 
“Odyssey delivers ambient pendulousness. Out of the ashes of a melancholic intro, the band somehow fills in the ominous framework created by the background synths with a post-punk melody that is downright optimistic. By the end, the band allows us to witness the devolution of a rock song into pure, melodically-filtered noise.” – Kim Muncie, Neufutur
“Odyssey is mind-bending music, like something out of a dream. It’s as contemplative on the instrumental front as it is thought-provoking lyrically. None of the space in this LP goes unutilized. Kazyak is an elite psych-rock crew who maximize avant-gardism.” – John McCall, Too Much Love
“Anyone can get into these songs and find something, lyrical or musical, to relate to on a deeper level. Odyssey has all the essential trappings of neo-psychedelic rock, applying such pedestrian terminology to a record as multifaceted and stimulating as Odyssey would seem, to me at least, rather dismissive of the sonic might that it delivers consistently, even after repeat listens.” – Loren Sperry, Music Existence 
“Languidly strolling across the aural sphere [Odyssey] is a psychedelically sonic adventure. [It] gives off a Tame Impala-like vibe, or even Sex People, as it stretches in and out of a cosmic dreamscape of sound. Vocally we’re reminded of Neil Young, with that laid back casualness that you know deep down actually means serious business.” – Essentially Pop 
“With Odyssey, Kazyak gives listeners plenty to explore, [it’s the band’s] most pioneering work yet.“ – Merrit Crowe, GIGsoup Music 
“Peter Frey, the bold indie-craft voice of Twin Cities-based Kazyak, details Odyssey’s retreat to psychedelia. It’s an extension of what the band has been doing since their inception: delving into what it means to be human.” – Mimi Geller, Minnesota Monthly 
“With Odyssey, Kazyak delivers kaleidoscopic spilling colors, heavily glistening reverb, and reverie-esque progressive rock dynamics.” – Randy Radic, Rawckus Magazine 
“Odyssey is audio aurora borealis, beautiful sunrise stuff, a light show of sonic beauty, colors that are buoyant upon the waves of cerebral psych-prog with wah-wah peddled wings, melodically drifting from universe to universe. This album is a mantra of riff magical rock music.” – Bill Golembeski, Soundblab 
“Intended for space rockers and synthetic shoegazers, emitting colorful guitar tones, abstract groove-driven swagger, and uncorrupted, shamelessly experimental rock.” – Mindy McCall, Indie Pulse 
“Odyssey is a full-bodied psychedelic treasure chest riddled with a tonality that speaks to the soul through its warm depth of emotion. Kazyak have made a sonic spellbinder, as I listen I find myself drifting in and out of consciousness.” – Michael Rand, MobAngeles 
“The thing we’re always searching for in the world of music…a band or artist who doesn’t sound like all the others. Odyssey is even more hallucinogenic than you might think, a true underground album, similar to underground bands in the 1970s but infused with cool threads of not-so-subtle psychedelia. This is one of those rare cases where the folks involved did everything right.” – Babysue 
“Kazyak has boldly sought to capture a sound that guides us like a ship navigating only on the stars in the clear night sky. In the vast, exploratory openness of Odyssey, I find myself clinging to the little things, the intricacies of the record that ebb and flow into one another with grace and precision. The album waxes poetic in a way that can be as simple or complex as you allow your mind to make it. The escapism of the record is quite pleasing and full of depth. The finest touch, however, comes in the reservation of the record. Rather than overwhelming any one part of any track with single abrasiveness vying for attention, Kazyak plains their delivery with a blended composition that is smooth as glass.” – Greg, Nanobot Rock 
“Odyssey feels as though it’s been transmitted from space. There’s a whole Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” vibe and stated inspiration from Joseph Campbell’s 1988 book and tv series, ‘The Power Of Myth.’” – Essentially Pop
“Odyssey is blurred beauty with extremely tight musicianship where synth and electronics add much to the mood. It’s a fascinating, complicated listen that one can peruse repeatedly without fear of ennui, we can easily put Kazyak on a list with the most exciting bands that exists in the Twin Cities today.” – Take Effect 
“There are few things as powerful as yearning vocals, soaring guitars and a locked-in rhythm section. Odyssey is cinematic, celestial and deeply impacting from start to finish. This is an album that is colossal in scope, deeply indelible in its impact and has a prayer-like serenity that is profound, lasting and well worth repeated listens.” – Greg Grobson, Step Inside This House 
1. First Do No Harm (4:54)
2. Our Daydream (4:10)
3. Talking to a Stranger (5:25)
4. Quicksand (4:37)
5. Androcles (4:25)
6. No Tattoo (3:59)
7. Belmonte (4:56)
8. 10,000 Flowers (4:31)
Kazyak returns with Reflection, the band’s third and first full-length release. Songwriter/guitarist Peter Frey calls Reflection “An attempt to create surreal, vivid, Dali-esque images with our sound — it’s a collection of outtakes, demos, and b-sides consistent with our history of not-trying-to-be-mainstream alternative rock. They’re all true songs of scenery seen, dreams dreamt, and feelings felt, enlivened by layers of musical and visual, psychefied experimentation.” The album fits right in to the band’s evolving catalog, following the band’s first release See the Forest EP in 2015, a pick-up-the-peices collection created after earlier music projects had ended abruptly, which was followed by the Happy Camping EP in 2017, a profession that the band had reached a steady, balanced state and was eager to carry on the musical collaboration.
SOUND
The album has an adventurous, restless attitude that detours into psychedelia. Even the odd meters feel tasteful and contribute to Kazyak’s creative ambition to push forward the limits of indie sound and songwriting. The LP blends a masterfully creative lineup that glues together electronic and acoustic drums, bass, guitars, and lush pockets of synth with Frey’s associative lyrics and someday-soon-will-be-nostalgic, maturing songwriting. The sound finds its roots in the 60s but has its eyes set on the future. Listeners will hear reminicings of Wilco, Yo La Tengo, Tame Impala, and Pink Floyd, while striving to craft a distinctly original sound of their own — attempting to replicate the uniqueness of the likes of Bob Dylan, Talking Heads, Gillian Welch, and the Grateful Dead.
INSPIRATION
Reflection was inspired by a trip Frey and his wife took to Chile and Argentina. The photography and video footage is primarily from the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile, featuring a bizarre, weathered, antiplano landscape with volcanoes, flamingos, salt flats, lagoons, wind turbines and the ALMA space observatory.
“It is innovative and patiently original alt-rock, with mood-altering streams of ambience, surfacing synths, and psych-folk-ballad tints.” – Randy Radic 
“Kazyak defines chill with ‘Reflection’. The album has such purpose that a listener is practically forced to close their eyes and fade away into euphoria, allowing listeners to get lost in the moment.” – Jason DeMoe
Song of the Day (First Do No Harm) 11/2/2018 + Friday Five (Belmonte) 10/26/2018 – 89.3 the Current
Original release: July 20, 2017 (self-released)
1. Pieces of My Map (4:40)
2. To the Manner Born (4:00)
3. Basin (4:45)
4. When I Lived In Carolina (4:57)
5. Darker (3:18)
6. Happy Camping (3:59)
In the conventional sense, a happy camper is a comfortable, contented person. Happy Camping is Kazyak having reached this state in active form – with sound, lineup, age, and life. The album is dubbed by Frey as the band’s ‘country record’, using simple guitar/bass/drums orchestration. The sound evokes a type of Experimental Americana.
Frey wrote the songs in the months that led up to his wedding. As part of a pre-wedding get-away, he and his wife-to-be visited Alaska, where they helicoptered from the foot of a melting basin to set up camp atop the glacier. The trip marked an inventive approach to making peace with the past, entirely unhooking it from the future ahead. In search of balance and a steady state, Frey and the band seem to have found it.
Original release: May 14, 2013 (self-released) Re-release: July 16, 2014 (Highwire Records)
1. Pieces of My Map (6:14)
2. To the Manner Born (4:45)
3. Tar Baby (3:23)
4. Part I: Rabbiting Fox (4:20)
5. Part II: Pitch Thick (4:02)
6. Disposition (3:59)
Kazyak takes us into the thick of the woods in their premiere of “Pieces of My Map”. Having made the festival circuit rounds, the new album See the Forest, See the Trees finds the group stirring up a selection of rich, heartfelt string arrangements with electric guitars, violins, banjos and strummed percussion sentiments that stretch out like the urban forest branches that embrace downtown Minneapolis.
The band’s approach to song construction is to utilize every breath and instrument as a foundational musical tree trunk for budding leaves, flowers and fruits to spring from with a searching spirit for life’s lost fragments. Frey makes up a compass of his own creation with the elaborate and lush array of stringed instruments. The album title encourages you to See the Forest, See the Trees, to survey the proverbial gestalt of all things for the details that comprises the sum of the dense grouped foliage.
In the 6 minute outing of “Pieces”, every guitar strum, every percussive drum machine tick reverberates like a naturally occurring counterpart. The electric guitar progressions move like the wave and way treetops sway in the wind, the banjo plunks can be heard like the trickling movement of a nearby brook, the drum machine’s clinks move like steps over the underbrush, while a violin gives an inner glance of emotion and provides a choral comfort.
Further entertaining of the forest-for-the-trees perspective cliché; Frey lays out the pieces of the scattered map as littered Hansel and Gretel-like breadcrumbs to find a way home. “disturbing the forest / took a while to decide / what type of failure I want to be / left with pieces of my map”. This central lyric spins around the song’s harmonizing chorus where the moment’s hesitation along a deciduous trail provides pause to think of which cartographical fragment will grant the best directional safe and sound passage. As the song closes, the stringed instruments emanate sunbeams of hope atop leaved canopies giving a certain guidance, assurance and granting a better understanding and observance of both the forest and the trees.
1. Intro
2. Monkeys
3. Nightwatchmen
4. Trig & Slevko
5. The Canopy
6. Franklin
7. The Quest
8. The Watchtower
9. Elephant Renaissance
10. Top Shelf Kiwi
1. Join the Band
2. Now I Know
3. Cactus
4. Cochino
5. Mean Egg Jed
6. Rushing Dragon
7. Don’t Let’s Be Silly
8. Strange
9. Daisy May’s Days
10. Sharks & Whales
11. Brontosaurus