Racer Session #321 | Crown Larks | April 24, 2016

This Sunday at the Racer Sessions we're so pleased to host the outstanding band Crown Larks. Hailing all the way from Chicago, they've been on the road for about a month and a half now. Read on for a few words about their presentation:

“Crown Larks explores a variety of movements, spaces, and textures through something like the medium of a rock band.  Negative space and dark textures in the style of Dark Magus-era Miles Davis stand alongside polyrhythmic hypnosis in the tradition of Steve Reich, Tony Conrad, or contemporary groups like Bad Luck and Horse Lords that blur the line between “rock” and new music with some free jazz inflection.  

 "Improvisation remains crucial to the band’s approach"

Hushed whispers, damaged screams, wind instruments, blown out amps, unhinged drums, bent electronics, and more caravan through eccentric structured songs and freer, more dynamic spaces that seek to combine the sweaty, visceral energy of a punk show with the cultivated expressiveness of jazz.  Improvisation remains crucial to the band’s approach, and the music explores the continuities and tensions among repetitive polyrhythms, textural drones, and visceral bursts of energy, whether tonal or atonal, culminations or ruptures.”

Improv 1: Evan Woodle (drums), Geoff Traeger (voice), Jack Bouboushian (guitar)

Improv 2: Michael Flanagan (guitar), Byron Svendsen (bass), Matt Puhr (bass), Devin Bews (drums), John Broback (electronics)

Improv 3: Ivan Arteaga (alto sax), Luke Bergman (bass), Bill Miller (drums), Samuel A Crome (alto sax and bell)

Improv 4: Matt Puhr (drums), Katie Jacobson (voice), Jason Dumas (guitar), Zach Perna (guitar)

Improv 5: Neil Welch (tenor sax), Devin Bews (drums), Lorraine Bailey (keyboard and flute), Jack Bouboushian (bass)