Crying Laughing

It’s already been a pretty banner year for hypnotic, mathematical jazz. Joining a packed shelf full of releases from Horse Lords, SML, and The Messthetics, Baltimore brings the debut album from Crying Laughing. The band formed from a cross-section of local luminaries, including members of RSTB faves Smoke Bellow, OXES, and touring members of Lower Dens. The band injects a post-punk ethos to the wracked rhythms of some of their more academic peers. The record is steeped in the same hypnotic pulses and vortex of repetition, but there’s a more stripped and shredded approach to the lock groove grind of modern meditative jazz.

The album hinges on the stripped down rhythmic approach of drummer Jen Kirby, who uses a modified kit, partly out of necessity and limitation and partly to borrow a page from her post-punk past. The rumble drives the twin sax shred of the album, pushing bass and synths against circular motifs that hurtle listeners down the stairs and help ‘em get right at the bottom. The record works its way from dizzying to slow, droning passages. It jumps off from the kind of improv that’s landed a lot of love on the LA session players, but Crying Laughing give a Baltimore burn to the sound. The record was recorded live to tape, and that immediacy of basement aesthetics and live energy drives Talking towards and intangible spark. A hell of a debut, and one that sets the band up to deepen their drive from here. Get in on the ground floor.

Support the artist. Buy it HERE.