Crack Cloud - Clothing

"it fills your heart even as it’s kicking you in the kidneys."

The first iteration of Crack Cloud was formed nearly a decade ago as a proxy-rehab outlet on the fringes of Calgary, where two EPs and their accompanying visual pieces were created during this time. By 2017, several members had relocated to Vancouver. It was after the move that the band produced their astounding 2020 album Pain Olympics, and their 2022 follow up, Tough Baby. All at once, their vision became expansive, cinematic, and precarious.

Now, their third full-length studio album, Red Mile, acts as both a tribute and a homecoming., Members have since left Vancouver and returned to Calgary; returned to the long stretch of landncolloquially referred to as the red mile. But what of the time away from home? After a decade of personal and collective growth, what does home even mean? To Crack Cloud, this is the liminal message demanding to be explored throughout Red Mile. The throughline thread of samsara - rebirth and life’s cyclical pattern weaving together the eight tracks. 

Red Mile’s eight anthems expand, wind and fold in on themselves in equal measure. They deploy gorgeous string sections, desert psych, sax blasts, group chants and punk snarls. In one moment, “Blue Kite” might recall Richard Hell; in the very next ‘Paris 1919.’ “I Am (I Was),” is a neu canticle about learning to live with the void and finding meaning there regardless. The song blooms again and again in your ears, shapeshifting from a driving acoustic strum and jaunty piano into a thrilling motorik group chorus.

Red Mile’s de facto thesis statement “The Medium” is itself a rock song meditation: an ode to the form and its practitioners. This genre that typical, repeatable, corporatized as it can be —somehow still has the power to help us live through life. We see that the dusty sentiment of “I love rock and roll” can be exhumed, taken apart, and stitched back together. It’s a song guided by faith - if the medium helps us proclaim our love today, it’s worth protecting from derision tomorrow. Crack Cloud’s Red Mile is a rock record - one made by people who know exactly how much that can mean.

CLOTHING

De la foisonnante scène musicale de Mexico émerge Clothing, une artiste éclectique dont les sonorités résultent d’une fusion d’influences folk du Texas et des riches textures de la musique régionale mexicaine. Ses compositions reflètent un parcours d’adaptation et de résilience, mêlant récits humoristiques et fantastiques avec le quotidien et l’absurde. Cette perspective unique embrasse la tension et le contraste, offrant une vision distinctive et captivante de la beauté de la vie, qui se manifeste dans une discographie sans barrières et un goût prononcé pour l’expérimentation.