Crickets

***CRICKETS is JD SAMSON (LE TIGRE, MEN), MICHAEL O'NEILL (MEN, PRINCESS), and RODDY BOTTUM (FAITH NO MORE, IMPERIAL TEEN, NASTIE BAND). The band’s sound is an exploration of minimalism, a celebration of restraint, a rant of queer prose set to a backdrop barrage of guitar, synthesizer and drum machine. Sounding like the collision of ESG, Suicide, and The Flying Lizards—or the distant, basement-funk cousin to Fever Ray—CRICKETS is gloriously and purposefully minimal. Tracks like “Elastic” and “Intentionally Passive” are beat-driven calls to arm, equally suited for protest or late-night dance party (or both, simultaneously), while “Can’t do it” and “Drilled two holes” are both harrowing and defiantly beautiful. Proclaiming the landscape of the queer body as playground and battleground and, lyrics like “My stache is my gash” and “So you wanna come back to me? Never!” provide a simmering personal/political backdrop and a palpable yearning to the record’s lean grooves. Described as “an exercise in stripping away the excesses of toxic masculinity from the studio,” the seven songs on CRICKETS tip their hat to everything from the Minimalism Art Movement, Coco Chanel’s rule of taking off the last thing you put on before leaving the house, Tom Tom Club, Jo Baer, Ellsworth Kelly, and Alicia McCarthy. The resulting record is imbued with a sound that's intentionally barren, sparse and emotional, and just as quiet as it is loud. Black vinyl in hand screened paper sleeve and hand stamped vinyl featuring original artwork by ALICIA MCCARTHY.