Kevin Bronson on June 2nd, 2017

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It’s seems like eons since boyhood buddies Teddy Cafaro, Spencer Mandel and Giuliano Pizzulo moved west to Los Angeles and, as Incan Abraham, started the slow build that led to “Tolerance,” the full-length album released in 2014. The dream-weaving electronic trio’s relative silence since then was broken in December when they released a sweeping single, “In My Bones,” and today, three-plus years after their album, comes a bigger package, the “Arabian Cane” EP.

“Arabian Cane” was recorded at the Canyon Hut Studios in Laurel Canyon with Grammy-winning engineer Clinton Welander and features Dash Hutton (ex-Haim) on drums for five of the six tracks. The EP’s combination of restless and sleek synths, tasteful guitars and yearning vocals evokes a certain nostalgia — not a coincidence, since the songs were conceived in the Hudson Valley garage where the band first got its start. As the threesome have reached the magic age of 30, they’ve painted a handful of their life lessons in broad strokes, “Arabian Cane’s” washes of synth and rushes of remembrances (“I was a cocky kid / but a reticent man”) leaving them standing clear-eyed at the milepost.

Buzz Bands LA premieres a full stream of the EP below, along with conversation about the new work, avoiding having dad bods and friendship. Because, as they say, “Friendship is cool.”

||| Stream: “Arabian Cane”

Buzz Bands LA: It’s been just past three years since “Tolerance” was released, and, well, the world seems to have gone upside down. Especially in the “Tolerance” department, right?

Incan Abraham: Certainly a lot has changed since the Obama years, but before we can fix the whole world, “Tolerance” begins at home. Start small, you know?

Fill me in on what the three of you have been up to outside of brainstorming Incan Abraham’s next move.

Giuls has spent the last couple years playing in Passion Pit. Spence has been exploring his talents as a writer for film and TV. Also, Ted and Giuls both have new music projects on the horizon. But Incan is where we come together in love and reverence of our special old friendship. Friendship is cool.

I feel like this batch of songs is not a reinvention but a refinement. The arrangements, instrumentation — everything — are so precise yet lush. Were the overall sonics of this release a topic of conversation?

Totally, a rediscovery more than anything else. We wrote the bulk of the material on the EP in the garage in upstate New York where we started the band in 2009 … with just the three of us and some minimal drum machine grooves. The simplicity of the setup and the familiar surroundings definitely informed the sonic world.

In an interview about the single “In My Bones,” Teddy name-checked Tangerine Dream, Mini Mansions … and The Boss. He’s our hero. That’s not a question, but just an invitation for you to crack wise.

He’s ours too. I don’t know if any of us would have said so back in 2009. We’re 30 now, so maybe we’ve transitioned into dad rock. At least we don’t have dad bods.

What does the title “Arabian Cane” refer to?

Arabian Cane is metaphorical sugar — fetishizing the exotic as an artificial sweetener to cover up a bad taste and make it more palatable. It’s kind of like aesthetic duct tape, or an emotional Band-Aid. How’s that?

How about “Fire Eyes”? I can almost see somebody’s face in that song …

Its definitely written about the face you’re seeing, but its mostly just about being young and insecure and doing things in our youthful exuberance that we later regret. Even you, I bet you made a youthful mess or two.

And the “you” in “You Are Me” — a specific person or the big, fat plural “you all”?

It’s actually Ted singing to his younger self about what to do differently, and maybe to worry a bit less. So yeah, don’t worry, it all works out. We love you all, though.