Tiny Rebels

Recorded in a week, *Tiny Rebels*—a 2013 mini-LP from Chicago’s Cairo Gang—is perhaps the best way to experience the ever-maturing works of Emmett Kelly. Like his fellow collaborator Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Kelly enjoys the confusion between himself as an individual and his musical project. These six songs capture Kelly creating a retro Byrds-like pop, right down to the thick electric bass lines and the heavily compressed harmonies and 12-string jangles. Except where The Byrds worked with a carefully measured approach, only occasionally finding the room to experiment, songs here such as “Tiny Rebels,” “Take Your Time,” and “Father of the Man” give an idea of what The Byrds post–“Eight Miles High” might have sounded like had they not wandered toward country-rock. The drums emerge to drive “Shake Off” into its garage-rock roots. “Find You with a Song” takes a lighter folk-rock approach, though the sudden sirens add a touch of chaos.

The Cairo Gang - Tiny Rebels (Out 7/23/2013 on the Disneyland Reform Party and Empty Cellar) Tiny Rebels is a new collection of songs by The Cairo Gang. they are about awareness. They show a new economy in the work of The Cairo Gang's leader Emmett Kelly, conjuring up quick and defined songs un-housed in the shimmering of two burning electric 12-string guitars. the sound of them a swirling desert night sky under which songs call to arms multiple voices that long to be freed from the contraints of song. to be re-blooded in a frenzy of hard hitting drums and bass. all the while set against a wild array of compressed overtones that jangle by the hand of Kelly's inversly delicate touch. In The Cairo Gang's previous efforts The Corner Man and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy collaberation The Wondershow of the World, Kelly displayed a heaviness in subtlety. The songs laboured over and performed so that the fire and rage were things to play in tandem with, as a pranaic exercise even. the result is audience for a certain type of in-tuneness, that although powerful and realized, nurture both the playing and the fire and the rage... this can be a dangerous place. this leads to Tiny Rebels. Recorded in a week, it is an epiphany of sorts. it is the boiling point that which Kelly surrendered to in one sense, but obliterated in another. the songs are empowering leaps of faith: "Say what you want, babe. dont just sit and listen to what you are told. you've got what it takes. Lord knows the only way that can suit you well." And from that leap they fall at a speed.. The sound of this record is what distinguishes it the most from previous works. Each song has the same instrumentation. two electric 12-string guitars, bass, and drums, with many voices often double tracked exciting a gorgeous spring reverberation and cut fiercely onto quarter inch tape. always in the red and fighting for space, the layers are deeply compressed and pulsating, creating an un-ease that fluctuates as if the listener is in a vacuum, pushing and pulling. or a wave pool. when cranked, it sounds as if there is music happening beyond the music. in the abstraction of the guitar sound. in the spacial irrecognition of the tape and reverb. the non-presence of the drums.. the jagged tremoloes.. The Cairo Gang has armed itself well on this record. turn it up loud and let it wash over you like an ocean.

The Cairo Gang are best known in the last few years for their work with Bonnie "Prince" Billy. On this mini-LP, Emmett Kelly's project sounds beamed in directly from 1966, just as psychedelia started creeping its way toward folk-rock.

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