Trade paperback, 72 pages. ISBN: 9781943679102.
TOY FABELS
by Cass McCombs
A book of poetry. 72 pages, illustrated by the author.
Toy Fabels is Cass McCombs’ debut poetry collection. Reading Toy Fabels feels like traveling through McCombs’ singular itinerant experiences — high and low voices merge, as childhood and adulthood, the east and west coasts, paganism and religion, twist into each other. A central theme is memory, especially a sort of half-remembered, half-obscured — but never idealized — landscape of Northern California. This remembered landscape is always in flux, shaping McCombs’ poetic language. Within this unique place, Toy Fabels features a number of unnamed narrators — from delinquent graffiti artists telling absurdist tales, to Marquis de Sade’s shadow and echo, to a disembodied voice that provides the mythic grounding for the collection. Illustrated by McCombs, Toy Fabels’ brilliance lies in its embrace of the inexplicable and the ephemeral.
Cass McCombs is a musician from Northern California, whose latest album is Tip of the Sphere. Visit his website here.
“McCombs’ first collection is an exciting sidebar in what continues to be an absorbing and uncompromising artistic career. Toy Fabels is certainly rooted in sub-culture and polemic, yet with its strange and macabre beauty and integral intransigent spirit, it holds universal impact — much like his music.”
“[Cass McCombs’] songs would lose nearly all of their magnetism without McCombs’ lyrics, which are some of the greatest you could hope to hear nowadays. Sung in a mild voice, they’re tightly packed with defiance, nihilism and esoteric jokes — all of which create a bizarre, exquisite friction against the calm of the music. Plus, it’s always a kick to place your trust in a narrator who never seems to want it.”
REVIEWS AND FEATURES
Excerpt on Small Press Distribution / Hotel #6
Seven Rooms Anthology / Pitchfork
Barnaby Smith, The Quietus / Joanna C. Valente, Luna Luna Magazine
Drew Tewksbury, Los Angeles Times / Jack Whatley, Far Out Magazine
Michael Mungiello, Full Stop