Bio

An impressive new talent.

~ Vicki Anderson, The Press

Cavalcades is the indie-poppy-folky-rocky project of New Zealand songwriter Fraser Dron. He’s a slow and whimsical thinker who is fond of dancing awkwardly behind the safety of a microphone.

Cavalcades’ music is indie-pop with folk, rock and jazz inflections, and has drawn comparisons to The Arcade Fire, Frightened Rabbit, Jens Lekman and Death Cab for Cutie. Fraser Dron’s lyrics are literate and full of unexpected images; his songs are meditations on travel and family, loneliness and fate, with a wry humour flickering under their seriousness.

Awaken Quite Alone E.P. review: Vicki Anderson, The Press, June 12th 2010

To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the most plesant sensations in the world, says Cavalcades. Bettered only, presumably, by awaking accompanied in a strange town? Cavalcades is Christchurch’s Fraser Dron. After a visit to the Wunderbar a couple of years ago to see the Harbour Sessions, Dron was inspired by a flier he saw for an open mic night. The story goes that he wrote a couple of songs in his friends’ garage, recruited his friend Matt to play snare-drum, and walked the Wunderbar’s hallowed planks one month later. Between his day job writing software manuals and other tedium of day-to-day existence he wrote more songs. He played at the Harbour Sessions himself the following year, developing on to recording at the Sitting Room in December last year. Following this he played two support slots at the Wunderbar, wrote more songs and in a frenzy of activity drew a picture of a boat. This is Cavalcades’ debut EP and, like the boat picture on the cover, it is a thing of fragile beauty. It reminds me strongly of Dudley Benson’s early recordings, minus any pretension whatsoever. In the Shape of A Wave is a bold, lustrous affair, with each listen revealing more tone and subtlety that can be overlooked on first hearing. A tale of wenches and hearty sea captains in the middle of the ocean banging down great goblets of mead with meaty fists. Lyrically it’s nothing of the kind, but those are mental pictures the song evokes. Flying North also sticks in my mind, something of a lament for transient friends who fly the coop. An impressive new talent. File next to the Arcade Fire, Death Cab for Cutie.