Unknown Pleasures: Creepy Crawlers

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April 23, 2009, 08:02 AM

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Hmmm... How should I describe Creepy Crawlers?

How about, "Paw Tracks-friendly"?

For the uninitiated, Paw Tracks is a record label created by members of Animal Collective that routinely releases, depending on your opinion, either wonderfully-idiosyncratic avant-garde music or disingenuously inconsequential sounds sorely lacking in genuine emotion and intellect, often peppered with overly overt post-post ironic nostalgia. In case you can't tell, my opinion of the label's output in general and Creepy Crawlers in particular is the latter.

I suspect that to the more intellectually-inclined members of an internet-savvy generation who seek something more meaningful than Lady Gaga, Flo Rida and Coldplay, the likes of Black Dice and Animal Collective seem to be genuine Artists (with a capital 'A', no less) following their own curious musical hearts rather than market research. However, as Last.fm's 'Similar artists' facility, which lists musicians who frequently share listeners with a specified artist, reveals the fans of the two latter groups are more likely to listen to other recent blog-friendly acts like Grizzly Bear and Wavves than established avant-gardists like Edgar Varese and John Coltrane.

And here lies the problem with the music of Creepy Crawlers: it appears to be the music of individuals whose knowledge of experimental and avant-garde music is limited to what are essentially contemporary indie bands. This isn't necessarily a problem. I mean, musicians don't need to have a degree in musicology to create worthwhile work, but if they are delving into experimental music with only second (if not third onwards)-generation approximations too recent to have stood a significant test of time as guides, well...

In case I'm not making myself clear, I am not harshly comparing Creepy Crawlers to the Greats but instead trying to make two observations: 1) expanding their record collections might help to expand their musical palette; and 2) strangeness - especially the kitsch, art-damaged kind - alone does not a meaningful composition make.

And I mean both points with the utmost sincerity, because Creepy Crawlers are not hopeless, just misguided. Behind the random, self-conscious primitivism lies obvious technical knowledge, for many of the sounds and textures clearly require applications of both time and skill to create. For example, 'First night in the new house' and 'dang dog' demonstrate that these guys know how to create and inventively layer simple melodies, as well as modify sounds to discover new patterns and tones... but that's all the emotionless, intellectually-void tracks offer. Likewise, after sitting through the first affected half of 'sensitive vibes', the listener is treated to dreamy digitally-processed fuzz Fennesz would be proud of... but by that point it's literally too little, too late with the track ending a minute later.

Sigh... If only this talent was applied to something more substantial than being weird for weird's sake.


To make up your own mind visit http://www.myspace.com/creepycrawlerscrawl

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