Caged Animals is the music of Jersey-born songwriter Vin Cacchione and Sackville-raised artist Magali Charron. Together they craft soulful songs that draw from folk, indie, and hip-hop—defying easy categorization and maybe even borders.

Vin and Magali met in the late-night frenzy of NYC’s mid-2000s anti-folk scene—Vin, a budding songwriter; Magali, a photographer with violin chops. Vin had been fronting the noir-tinged folk-rockers Soft Black, whose lineup included DIIV’s Zachary Cole Smith.

In 2009, the couple formed Caged Animals, recording spontaneous lo-fi anthems in their Brooklyn apartment that echoed across the altered zones of the early blogosphere. The pair have toured internationally, emerging from the DIY haze of weird-era Brooklyn and coming of age in the folksy marshes of Sackville. Their music has been described as “tuneful and heartfelt” by BrooklynVegan and “the perfect band to re-soundtrack Blue Velvet” by The Guardian. Outside of Caged Animals, Vin is an acclaimed collaborator in the fiction podcasting world, working with artists as varied as John Cameron Mitchell, Jessica Chastain, Michael Shannon, Welcome to Night Vale, and The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle.

Their forthcoming album, Make Strange Friends—recorded to tape with Jon Mckiel—is their most ambitious to date, pairing nine character-driven songs with a surrealist radio play starring Magali’s grandfather Bertholet and Vin’s mentor, the countercultural writer Larry “Ratso” Sloman. For this, their fourth Sappyfest performance, Vin and Mags will be joined by a stellar lineup of Sackville songwriters and musicians including Steven Lambke, Gaelen Olinski, and Luke Patterson.

Website: cagedanimals.net

Bandcamp: cagedanimals.bandcamp.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/CagedAnimals

Photo by Magali Charron