Stream: Cayucas, ‘Topo Ride the Wave’

Kevin Bronson on May 31st, 2022

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Before the brothers Yudin — Zach and Ben — released their fourth Cayucas album back in 2020, they proclaimed to be abiding the mantra “back to the beach.” They must have taken up residence, because the surf-pop duo’s new single, “Topo Ride the Wave,” picks up right where that album, “Blue Summer,” left off.

It’s a bright, brisk new song from the Santa Monica natives whose campaign to be L.A.’s unofficial Band of Summer dates back a decade and whose catalog supports the notion that their music should soundtrack every beach bash.

Last summer, Cayucas reported via their socials that they were holed up at L.A.’s Sunset Sound, working on recording their fifth album with Joe Chiccarelli (Jason Mraz, Cage the Elephant, the Strokes, Beck, et al). “Once we finished recording the record we kinda knew we needed one more uptempo, high-energy song,” the duo said in introducing the new song last week. “We had one demo idea … that we thought we could push across the finish line in the last few days. But it wasn’t flowing, and the lyrics weren’t panning out. So we decided to leave the album as it was, and maybe if we could write a song over the next month or so we could get back in the studio and record it.

“Well, that’s what happened. After about two months I came up with a bass line/riff and a song started to appear, but the lyrics were gone. I had expended all my lyrical ideas and needed help. We connected with songwriter Mike Daly, I went in with a rough song titled ‘Ride The Wave’ and we started riffing, lyrics started flowing and he helped shaped the melody.”

||| Stream: “Topo Ride the Wave”