It used to hold that you could record highly improvised music that lives in the moment or studio-crafted music that wipes out imperfections and produces a shimmering, feckless sonic patina – but you couldn’t have both. Recent advances in audio engineering technology have made it possible to have your cake and eat it, too, but that still requires technologically-savvy musicians with the insight to unlock that potential. There are a few musicians who hold that key, like David Torn and Makaya McCraven. Meet two more who likewise figured it out.
Guitarist Simon Angell and drummer Tommy Crane have long been part of the Montreal scene and for more than 20 years they’ve been the musicians of choice there in the indie rock, jazz and experimental music realms. Now combining forces as a duo, Angell and Crane distill those styles and more into music that loops, samples and contorts live and extemporaneous performances into something truly out of this world, while also truly captivating.
Forty hours of recordings from workshopping material under this formula got whittled down to forty minutes for their new, debut project Angell & Crane. The finished product luxuriates, fascinates, and invigorates using an unnatural collision of the organic with the synthetic.
In the video premiering above, we get to witness the sausage being made, so to speak, for “Himalayan Dial-Up,” except that there’s nothing ugly about the process. Crane sets off a three-chord loop going from a synthesizer and then settles down behind his drum kit to pivot into a totally improv mindset. Armed with a battery of effects boxes, Angell is furiously twiddling them like a mad scientist, wringing alien sounds from his guitar. But at the heart of this performance is the interaction between these two, and that interaction is the same as those between two veteran, instinctual acoustic jazz cats.
In the hands of Simon Angell and Tommy Crane, these technological devices are not crutches but merely conduits for the constant bursts of creativity you see here on display.
Angell & Crane was released everywhere on November 8, 2024. Grab your copy of it from Bandcamp.
*** Purchase or stream Angell & Crane from Amazon ***
- Angell & Crane, “Himalayan Dial-Up” from ‘Angell & Crane’ (2024): Video Premiere - November 22, 2024
- Michael Attias, “Avrils” from ‘Quartet Music Vol. II- Kardamon Fall’ (2024): Streaming premiere - October 11, 2024
- Bryn Roberts, “Aloft” from ‘Aloft’ (2024): Video Premiere - September 20, 2024
