On this fourth volume of the Unusual Animals split vinyl releases we find a larger-than-life classic of the Disco era shrunken down to miniature size by the Bay Area's premier paranormalists, Cryptacize. Whereas the studio magic of Steely Dan can only be attributed to millions of dollars in major corporate backing, Cryptacize pulls it off with just a couple of claves, an autoharp, and a fuzz-pedal, arranged and recorded by Cryptacize with help from up-andcomer Dominique Leone. On the B side, Cryptacize's Bay Area neighbors WHY? (Anticon) reinterpret Dylan into a bass driven mystery night train anthem for reflection and cruising.

Cryptacize began across the street from the C&H Sugar Factory in Crockett, CA, where Nedelle Torrisi and Chris Cohen lived in an apartment slightly tilted. They discovered something even stranger - a video of a drummer named Michael Carreira playing his cowbell. Having only this video, they sought him out and convinced him to join their band and shortly there after began working on their first album.

WHY? fiddle around with skins, strings and bells through microphones attached to tape, presenting their “findings” to the waiting world. Yoni and his brother Josiah Wolf and Doug McDiarmid, in created and/or contributed to a number of freewheeling rap and lo-fi bedroom-rock related projects, some still unexcavated: Miss Ohio’s Nameless, Apogee, Greenthink, Reaching Quiet, and the now seminal cLOUDDEAD. WHY?’s latest, brightest, darkest smile-twisted opus, Alopecia, is a fantastic offering of raw sweat and dreams inspired by nothing more or less than the infinite erring bits of daily existence.

The Unusual Animals Vinyl Series pairs Asthmatic Kitty roster artists with friends and sometimes-unlikely bedfellows. Each record includes a beautiful rendering of one of Mother Nature's stranger inhabitants by illustrator Jared Chapman

1. Cryptacize - Peg
2. Why? - As I Went Out One Morning