There is a fair bit of mystery surrounding Crow’s Feet. Emerging out of nowhere over the last couple months with the beautiful “Alarm Clock Bones,” the project of former WOMPS drummer Lewis Tollan has the air of something special about it.
Of course I’m just going off of one song here, but the base of the harmonium (I wrongly thought it was an organ) is delicately layered up with strings, echoes, guitar, and wonderful vocals from Calum Stewart to a crescendo of noise that makes the hair on your arm stand on end.
With not much to go on when glancing through Twitter, Facebook, or Soundcloud pages, it appears that Tollan is determined to let the music do the talking. The lack of social media reminds me a bit of when Jungle broke a few years back—not with the Saturday Night Fever rip offs or lack of creative diversity, but in the way their lack of interaction was actually quite refreshing.
So what do we know? Well, he is based in Glasgow, UK. Also, in a similar way to Justin Vernon and Bon Iver, the project centers around Tollan but involves an ever-changing line-up of friends and collaborators who come in and add their own ideas and influence to the music. As a result I am both excited and a little nervous about what the next song(s) to be released will sound like—a good nervous though—in a way that I really want them to live up to my now lofty expectation.
I always find that this point is key in my opinion of new artists, many release good or even great songs only to fall away when it seems they can’t quite recreate the standard of their first track. The ones that do (and I have a good feeling about Crow’s Feet) are the sort that you can’t help but get excited about.
“Alarm Clock Bones” is out now on Old Mill Recordings.
