The Caribbean features members of DC bands Stuart Went Crazy and the Townies. While the band has been described as “the architects of pop music,” the Caribbean are more comfortable with deconstruction than construction. Mixing found sounds, samples, keyboards and piano with the usual guitar, bass and drums, the Caribbean make albums filled with profound little pop sketches. Nonlinear pop sketches to be sure, but hidden inside every song is the Caribbean’s relentless gift for melody.

Genre: Art-pop, Experimental pop

Sounds Like: The Pixies meet New Order and hang out with DJ Shadow

“On the receiving end, however, the pop wreckages of “History’s First Know-It-All” are quite easy to enter. Most are loaded with all-purpose catharsis, ready to be nodded to on the way to a blind date, or just as things are getting serious, or a few weeks after the break-up. They’re taut with a kind of pointless frankness, but the point is just to be taut. And they are.” - Pitchfork 7.7 

Check Kiting

In House

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Formed in 1999 from the charred remains of two relatively obscure Washington-area groups (townies, smart went crazy), the Caribbean re-located to CD proper before taking a correspondence course degree in pillbox hat design from the Bissinger College of Reflexology (Altoona, PA). They continue to commute, send e-mails, Fedex zip discs and argue about counter-melody, song titles and the death penalty.

Genre: Art-pop, Experimental pop

Sounds Like: The Pixies meet New Order and hang out with DJ Shadow

“…the ‘new lounge’ — would be perfect for the bulk of a record like this…. for you have witnessed the coining of a phrase that will be widely acceptable in our elite musical lexicon in no time at all…. Oh, and thanks to the Caribbean for being the effective catalyst. Nice album you got there.” - Pitchfork 7.8 

Verse By Verse

Help Would Only Confuse Me

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