Alan Dearling writes: “I was sad, frustrated, and a tad pissed off when this gig was cancelled at the last moment at Trades Club, Hebden Bridge…”
Crack Cloud are very much on the ‘band-to-look-out-for’ radar at the moment and are supporting Pavement at some UK gigs.
Are they, Musical theatre? Story-tellers extraordinaire. Punky rappers – possibly inheritors of the musical-mantles worn by Michael Jackson in ‘Thriller’. Or, Devo and Sparks…who knows (or probably cares)… but they seem to have stepped out of pop into a diverse range of stage sets, populated brim-full of teenage angst, and rebellion. Weird hipster youthful shit. A kids’ version on Arcade Fire, perhaps? Innovative and obviously ‘out there’… and just made for the video internet age!
‘Ouster Stew’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaZHifM0qGo
Syncopated, staccato, strikingly individual. Sometimes darkly menacing, skewed, uncomfortable and at times ‘challenging’. But fascinating. Here they are live from Paris in 2019. ‘Drab Measure’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q5Vm_dt_9w
Here’s their latest seriously deranged video for the track, ‘Tough Baby’, a full-on production that veers between teen-harmonies and Prodigy-grunge. From teen-bedroom dreams to cavemen hallucinations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuiApNB8Ug0
It’s a prelude to their new album, which is, in words of pundits: “eagerly awaited.”
To date, they have released one studio album, ‘Pain Olympics’ (2020) with their follow-up, ‘Tough Baby’ is expected to be released September 16, 2022.
Wikipedia: “Crack Cloud are a Canadian musical and multimedia collective based in Vancouver, British Columbia, formed by drummer and frontman, Zach Choy. Alongside the group’s core musical members who perform live as a band, a large number of multimedia artists are also associated and operate simultaneously as an in-house production studio within the group, due to the project’s strong focus on visual storytelling.
Formed in 2015, Crack Cloud started as the solo project of lead vocalist and drummer, Zach Choy while living in Calgary, Alberta. Soon after, the project moved to Vancouver in 2018, where most of its members met through various addiction recovery and mental health programmes both as participants and as support workers. Choy stated that the purpose of Crack Cloud is a ‘healing mechanism’.”
‘Please Yourself’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BteWnj3vr1o&t=363s
Very much a video and song from another teenage-bedroom-opera, or, TV ‘soap’. Art and music exploring depression, mental health and finding your own identity.
Sadly, I didn’t get to see them live or take my own pics of them. Crack Cloud are video film-makers, an Art-Punk outfit, and a music collective to watch out for!
I’ll end with a link to a noisy, experimental 2021 live show for Netherland’s Radio displaying their avant-garde jazz-punk intentions to conquer all the musical genres in the universe! Drum, organ and sax-led musical metal violence. A bit Rammstein even, certainly a tad Teutonic.
‘Costly engineered illusion’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKsSgbRddZg