Kasbo - The Making Of A Paracosm (2LP) - White Vinyl

Kasbo’s second album, The Making of a Paracosm, arrived on October 23, 2020 via Foreign Family Collective and Counter Records, and it still feels like stepping through a door into someone’s private world. The title nods to the kind of elaborate imaginary universe kids build to make sense of the chaos around them, and Carl Garsbo leans into that idea with music that opens like little dioramas. He was already a staple of the melodic bass and indie electronic space after Places We Don’t Know, but this record moves with a calmer pulse. Part of that came from necessity. In 2019 he hit pause on touring due to ear and hearing issues, a scare that would make any producer rethink their relationship to volume. You can hear that restraint across the album. The drops never bludgeon, they bloom.

Kasbo has always had a cinematographer’s ear for light, and these tracks glow instead of glare. “Play Pretend” with Ourchives is a great entry point. The vocal is featherlight, almost conversational, and the arrangement swells around it with soft pads, crisp rimshots, and those signature harmonic lifts he stacks like sunbeams. Different song, same care on “Bleed It Out” with Nea, where the hook carries a bittersweet lilt and the low end moves in slow tides rather than big waves. “Shut the World Out” with Frida Sundemo leans even more into mood, giving her voice space to breathe while tiny melodic filigrees flicker in the periphery. You get the sense Kasbo was working with the fader at half mast and the imagination dial at ten.

What makes the record connect is how tactile it feels. The drums are clean, sure, but there are all these small textures that keep pulling you in. Shakers that sound like they were captured in a quiet room, synths that start as a glassy wash and then bend into a soft lead. He’ll slip a chord change under a chorus that adds just enough ache, or drop the arrangement to a hush so the next swell lands like a release. It is electronic music that wants to be lived with, not just blasted. File it next to the humane end of the ODESZA universe, but it’s distinctly Kasbo. He sketches wide Nordic skies and rain on tram windows, then threads it with pop instincts that never feel cloying.

The Making of a Paracosm also plays like a thoughtful set, not just a string of singles. Interludes act like scenic overlooks, and the sequencing gives your ear room to reset. Put it on front to back and it carries you along, almost like a long bike ride where the city gradually gives way to the woods. That pacing is a blessing on vinyl. The bass breathes, the midrange warms up, and the little details pop. If you see The Making of a Paracosm vinyl in the wild, grab it. I once clocked a copy while flipping through a Melbourne record store and kicked myself for not doubling back. Kasbo albums on vinyl have a way of disappearing once word gets around.

If you’re coming in as a fan of Places We Don’t Know, this feels like an older sibling that learned a few quiet tricks. The choruses still lift, but the album prizes atmosphere and patience. That focus suits the guests, who slide in like characters rather than star turns. The songwriting holds up when the sugar rush fades, which is a neat trick in this corner of electronic music. The singles did what they needed to do, yet the deep cuts are where the record earns its title. Each track adds another street, another shoreline, another bridge between pop clarity and producer nerdery.

It also landed at a time when listeners were craving escape. 2020 wasn’t exactly overflowing with ease, and here was an album that felt like a clear little world you could revisit. That might be why fans traded recommendations the way crate diggers pass notes in the shop. If you’re hunting for Kasbo vinyl or looking to buy Kasbo records online, this is the one I point people toward. It’s an entryway and a destination, polished but human, soothing without going soft. Put it on late, let the room dim, and watch the edges of the day soften. Even in a crowded field, this record builds its own place and invites you in.