Foxy Digitalis
Kudos to The Tapeworm for pairing LA power couple Yann Novak and Robert Takahashi Crouch on this new split tape, Giving Water to the Dead. Novak and Crouch create some of the most engaging, emotionally-dense music around. They started with the same source material for this split but went on their own sonic treks. Each side […]
Robert Takahashi Crouch’s 2021 album, Jubilee, is special. He upped the ante earlier this year with a collection of reworks from a host stellar artists of album opener (and standout), “A Ritual.” The world of Jubilee continues to grow and evolve and for listeners, the expansive scope is a gift. Crouch adds an additional orbit with this Ritual Variations […]
The opening track on Robert Takahashi Crouch’s last album, Jubilee, is the 19-minute “A Ritual,” culled from a longer, two-hour improvisational piece. For Ritual Variations, out on May 6 via Room40, he commissioned seven friends and artists to use the original two-hour recording as source material for further investigations and contemplations on the intimate nature of the music. The […]
Yann Novak’s sound worlds are dense, threaded with an emotional dexterity that adds such depth and nuance that I find it near-impossible not to completely lose myself in his work. His most recent album, Lifeblood of Light and Rapture, floored me the more I’d listen. Further to that, there’s a real care to his work that […]
In the cold light of a winter morning, sharp air flowing like a stream of microscopic daggers against the skin, Robert Takahashi Crouch’s Jubilee sits in the shadows. Crouch asks in the notes about the album, “What can be communicated in my chosen medium, how can I do this, and where (or what) is the porous boundary […]
Robert Takahashi Crouch’s new album, Jubilee, is a crucible. Buried deep within its molten confines are remnants of an existential crisis and conflict, melted into a simmering sonic narrative. First offering, “Reconciliation,” shifts the viewpoint, rising slowly and purposefully from the fire. Modulating drones grow and contract, building up the nerve to plunge into the […]