Crown the Invisible

Crown the Invisible is a New York-based indie rock / shoegaze act RIYL The Jesus and Mary Chain, early Primal Scream, Eagulls.

Their second album Aporia Days is out tomorrow and available for download now on Bandcamp.

Have a listen to thumping, hazy indie rock album opener “Deep End Corollary” belows - Deadly Music

This is big. In all the best senses of the word. Described as being grounded in both “70s progedelia and 90s manchysteria”, we can fully hear and appreciate both on Aporia Daze, Crown the Invisible’s second long-player. Strong, churning propulsion forms the foundation, briefly breaking out into prog flights of fancy (usually most evident in the rhythm section), only to bring the plane back down to the safe cruising altitude you started at. Each song is a journey of the mind and the senses, with multiple layers to peel back and examine.

Taken individually, any of these musical styles are prone to excess and wankery. Psych repetition, prog navel-gazing, Mancunian faux-cool. It takes a capable set of songwriters and musicians to combine the best elements of all, add wall-of-sound shoegaze guitars, occasional tremolo and capable production, and come out with a jewel this impressive. The “progadelia” elements are never overdone, in fact they provide a moderately complex musical structure that keeps you engaged throughout the LP. While the album may lack for a strong “radio single”, Aporia Daze isn’t really built for that. Crown the Invisible wants to grab and hold you for the time it takes to consume the album as a whole. Wanna take a magic carpet ride?

FFO: Highlands, early Moonbell.

Aporia Daze is released 28 April, available for preorder via Bandcamp.
Check out Crown the Invisible at their website, and follow their progress on Facebook and Twitter. - DKFM

Crown the Invisible, The New Lines, Balancer, Monuments @ Union Pool -

Brooklyn shoegazers Crown the Invisible celebrate the release of their new album, Aporia Daze, tonight. (Stream the album below.) They play with excellent baroque psych band The New Lines. - Brooklynvegan

For this month's Revitalize Music Contest, artists from Lisbon to Austin dug through public domain songs, got inspired, and submitted their creations to our contest repository. Our talented judges from the music, radio, and public domain worlds loved hearing the wide range of incredible entries, but eventually had to select a winning song.

OUR WINNER IS CROWN THE INVISIBLE

Crown the Invisible created an incredible power pop rendition of the 1911 revenge anthem "The Spaniard That Blighted My Life" by Billy Merson. The song tells the story of a man whose girl is charmed away by a Spanish bullfighter.

'Twas at the bull fight where we met him
We'd been watching his daring display
And while I went out for some nuts and a programme
The dirty dog stole her away
The winning band's been around for about a year, and are a blend between a studio compositional project and a raucous psychedelic act. They are all young, grizzled rock dudes who live and work in East Williamsburg warehouses, where they've been cultivating their space/stoner rock sound. They describe their band as "if Rick Wakeman played with Ride, but the songs were written by The Pretty Things while they watched Planet of the Apes and listened to Hawkwind." That is to say, they all grew up on early '90s and '60s British stuff.

TAKING A SONG FROM 1911 AND MAKING IT SOUND 2013
When the band began working on their arrangement they describe the process as "vibe hunting." There was a lot of stomping and clapping involved, which is how they ended up deciding to keep the waltzy 3/4 time signature without over-emphasizing it. This also how they found the song's distinctive sound, a swirling whistle made by playing a hammond organ sample on a keyboard through a guitar amp.

During this process, singer CG Foisy says he kept waking up in the middle of the night with the lyrics stuck in his head. He says it's a terrible song to have in your head because, "it's cheeky, evil and weird. It's a portal into male territoriality. How men are these vindictive monkeys."

Overall, the challenge was good practice for the band. This summer CG is traveling to Beijing, where he'll play a few shows, and then spend a week traveling the silk road looking for music along the way. What he finds will eventually be adapted into song challenges for the band. Whenever he travels, CG loves to pick up a new instrument. You can even hear (kinda) one of these instruments in the winning song. It's an Indian instrument he bought in Singapore called the gopichand. It sounds part sitar, part mouth harp.

Participating in the contest speaks to the bands' interests in being part of a community through their music. Some bands get really into making an album, then going on tour, then making another album, then going on another tour, and hoping to be signed by a label. CG says, "That works well for some bands, but other bands like to take on weekly assignments, making videos and vignettes, and to have different kinds of conversations with their fans."

Crown the Invisible includes Jared Barron, CG Foisy, Steve Schwadron, with a guest appearance in this recording by Gabriel Berezin on bass. Check out their summer series Fantastic Planet, which installs different bands in different warehouses, merging live noise rock with visuals. You can also see them play live on May 9th at Don Pedro (90 Manhattan Avenue), where they might be performing their winning song.

The band will soon be given the "Friday" treatment by music video producer Elizabeth Skadden. She's worked with bands including Deep Time and Parquet Courts (who have a live session on the FMA). Check back later this month to see what they put together.

THIS IS THE CONTEST THAT NEVER ENDS

Even though the contest is over, we'd like to leave this as an open-ended creative challenge for everyone interested. You can submit your songs here. Keep in mind that because our contest entries have all adapted the CC0 Public Domain Declaration, they are all ripe for remixing and use in various projects.

THANK YOU TO OUR JUDGES

Our speedy judges included Edward Guo (Founding Director, IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library), April Ledbetter (Dust-to-Digital Record Company), Laura Cantrell (Singer-Songwriter), Joel Meyer (Executive Producer, WNYC's Soundcheck), Adam Green (Editor, Public Domain Review) and Ken Freedman (Station Manager, WFMU). They evaluated entries based on originality, creativity, artistic merit, adherence to the "Revitalize Music" theme, and general musical appeal. - WFMU

This is a really interesting tune, with a really interesting backstory. Basically there was a musician long ago in the UK I believe, who wrote this song, and aeons later, it became a public domain track with little interest.

http://freemusicarchive.org/curator/WFMU/blog/Revitalize_Music_Contest_The_Winning_Song

A contest was put on, with the intention of letting new artists interested in public domain, do covers and remakes of these songs to bring them into the 21st century. This was one of the most noteworthy tracks. They are out of Brooklyn, and they are working on a new album right now.

Crown The Invisible - The Spaniard who blighted my life - Jumbly Music