Post-punk marries pop minimalism as the Canadian collective look inwards and shout outwards.
"Come all ye join us
Lets all have some fun
From microbe to the matrix
We’ll outlive our sun"
In the cynical ‘Crack of Life’, the opener of Crack Cloud’s third album Red Mile, we are invited to join the group in peeling back the veneer from our flawed society. To bassist Aleem Khan the song enacts a communal auditory medicine, representing “solidarity in the suffering of humanity”. The repeating refrain “Time, we got time, we got time” is both eerie and reassuring, a precarious anchor amongst the tempestuous waters of the modern digital age.
For a group characterised as post-punk, indie-garage-rock, and most amorphously art-punk, Red Mile, released on the 26th of July this year, had to resolve a self-prescribed identity crisis: how could an anarchic punk band mature as its musicians settled down and recognised the primacy of hope and love? In the vast absences of the Mojave Desert, California, Crack Cloud embraced the minimalism and universalism of pop conventions, finding the space to foreground subversively weighty, nuanced lyrics within a sonic landscape intentionally diverging from their previous two LPs. The 8-track record, named after the stretch of 17th Avenue SW in founder Zach Choy’s hometown of Calgary, Alberta, relinquishes maximalism but sustains an instrumental richness and diversity (at one point featuring a harpsichord), constructing what could be unwieldily labelled as post-post-punk.
Thematically Red Mile was heavily influenced by the work of the eminent 20th century Canadian scholar Marshall McLuhan, a man known as the “father of media studies”. In 1964 he coined the phrase “the medium is the message”, meaning that the medium in which we communicate has equal, if not higher, value than the message that is being conveyed. Various other McLuhan quotes adorn the promotional material of the album, situating the project as a deconstructive work on the role of punk, rock, and pop in the modern music world. In ‘The Medium’, Red Mile’s second track, the conventions of pop and rock are laid bare as objects of perpetual consumption: “It's these four chords that everybody knows/ Catchy platitudes for the restless mind/ Peppy plastic melodies we hear all the time”. Crack Cloud illuminates the genres themselves as agents and subjects of analysis; “The medium itself was the message”.
As September drew to a close Crack Cloud performed at KOKO in Camden as they toured Red Mile across Europe. Live in concert their staggering intensity met my expectations - what struck me was the sheer performative quality on show, elevating their music far beyond the studio recording counterparts. Founder and bandleader Zach Choy’s gritty, forceful vocals snarled and cascaded throughout the cavernous former theatre. Frequently keyboardist and singer Emma Acs operates as an aural counterweight, her gliding voice serene and clear. The predominantly jagged nature of the group’s sonic toolkit, from pick scrapes and strumming behind the nut on guitar, to frenetic, uncontrollable saxophone lines, presents a band seemingly rough around the edges. Yet beneath this angular exterior of unorthodoxy laid an array of incredibly talented artists and an undoubtedly polished live act. As we cascaded from ‘Empty Cell’ into a frenzied rendition of ‘Image Craft’, now over 50 beats per minute faster than the studio version, the crowd roared their approval.
The Canadian multimedia collective’s shifting lineup (now slimmed down to 6 main performers) has continuously evolved since their formation in 2015. And ‘collective’ they unquestionably are. Closest to the audience that night were the 6 core musicians, and behind sat a string quartet. Frontman-drummer Choy, simultaneously the heartbeat of the band and its piercing focal point, typifies the group’s multi-instrumentalism. Khan at one point exchanges his Gibson SG bass for the Fender Stratocaster of guitarist Bryce Cloghesy (aka Military Genius), performing a slow, eerie guitar solo to close ‘Lost On the Red Mile’. With the exception of virtuoso saxophonist Nat Philips, all of the main bandmembers contributed to lead or backing vocals. Particularly memorable was the rasping voice of guitarist Will Choy (Zack’s younger brother) as he led the raw and expansive ‘Ballad of Billy, singing of personal self-discovery intertwined with a lost friend
“We’re all sensitive people, with so much to give” proclaimed Khan halfway through the performance, highlighting the group’s sustained focus on communal support and harking back to their origins. Crack Cloud’s founding mythology is of utilising music as a support and recovery mechanism, as harm reduction for a collective living in close proximity to addiction. In 2018 the group moved to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside amidst an opiate and Fentanyl crisis, with many bandmembers meeting in recovery from addiction or whilst working in low-barrier care initiatives. Zach Choy has spoken candidly on his own past experience with substance abuse, and how community and music-making can help process trauma. This proved a captivating (yet reductionist, and erroneous in the case of members without experiences of drug abuse) narrative for music media outlets as the band established themselves with two early EPs and their 2020 debut Pain Olympics. The band have struggled with a feeling of being taken advantage of ever since. On ‘Blue Kite’, Choy confronts this media hijacking head-on, exclaiming “you know my story, yeah I’m just a fucking addict”. Highlighting a crucial tension in the group’s unplanned success and longevity, he doesn’t want a legacy of “commercialising the idea of a DIY harm reduction collective”. Part of resolving the band’s identity crisis was therefore creating music that represented more than the reproduction and reliving of trauma. Accordingly, Red Mile represents a methodological paradigm shift for Crack Cloud. Gleefully strumming power chords, striking cymbals and building to anthemic string climaxes, their tangible joy for life acts in counterpoint with their punk angst.
Aleem Khan cuts an almost messianic figure during the haunting buildup of ‘Lack of Lack’.
These feelings of joy and angst manifest in a sense of urgency that permeates all that is Crack Cloud. Speaking to The Line of Best Fit in July, Zach Choy acknowledged this central tenet of Red Mile: that “there’s never really a guaranteed tomorrow”. This urgency is infectious, and accordingly the crowd was rowdy. By the wailing climax of ‘Lack of Lack’ a mosh pit began forming of elbows, shoves, bounding leather and the occasional crowd surf. The demographic breadth of concertgoers illustrates the universal appeal of music that embraces uncertainty with open arms. Crack Cloud’s final message is powerful, and one I personally subscribe to: in our short, sometimes difficult time on this earth, why not sing, dance, and live, right here, right now?
Image credits are attributed to the writer
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