Kevin Bronson on July 27th, 2017

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Graduate school’s loss is music’s gain. That’s the story behind Cataline — although you might need to go back to college to get your mind around “Disentanglement,” the artist’s second EP, which is coming out Aug. 10. The project is the brainchild of Chicago native Brent Puls, who, after pursuing a degree in conceptual sculpture and then another in astrophysics, dropped out of school to concentrate on making music. Cataline’s shimmering synth-pop, which features background vocals from live keyboardist Nina Luna, takes an arms-wide-open look at what Puls calls “a gleefully dystopian world.” It’s pop with some conceptual heft — the EP’s titled is derived from the theory of quantum entanglement, which holds that that some particles affect each other on a quantum level even at great distances. This may or may not apply to affairs of the heart, but in the case of the single “Fire in Sky,” Puls takes a rather euphoric look at “the sense of impending doom that seems to be dominating the airwaves.” Cataline is not the first to suggest dancing while the world is burning, but possibly one of the most erudite.

||| Stream: “Fire in the Sky”