Cryptids After Dark –Some Distant Light


The album took six years to complete. Initially intended to be an EP, four of the tracks were recorded in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2010 with former Cusacks bandmate, Dave Gibson on bass/backing vocals and Kris Hough on drums. Scrapping the EP idea, Kokas returned to Charlottesville in 2015 to record six more tracks with Gibson once again on bass/backing vocals and Adam Brock handling the drums this time around. Overdubs for both sessions were recorded by Kokas at his home in Columbus, Ohio and completed in 2016.

While still strongly influenced The Byrds, Sloan, and Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Kokas also reveals his admiration for artists such as Lush, Ride, Tame Impala, The Fresh & Onlys, Duran Duran, The Cure, and New Order in his use of guitar and synth effects to invoke emotions. Though the songs cover a ten-year period, common themes of uncertainty and traveling into the unknown, emotional pain and loss, and obsession with outcasts emerge. Kokas says, “I find it difficult to write songs when I’m content. It is easier for me to write when I’m anxious and somewhat reflective at the same time. Also, I often find myself observing people I don’t know in a variety of settings and imagining what their lives must be like. My songs are usually a synthesis of the scenarios I have created about these strangers I’m observing and my own emotional state in a setting that is distant and nebulous.”