"Roundabout"/"Crash" by Jackdaw With Crowbar
Review
If you can have an elephant in the room type situation in terms of reviewing, then in my case it might be Jackdaw with Crowbar. I should have reviewed them (at least in terms of a release) long before but apart from some live reviews in the context of APE Promotions nights, I've not managed to reference them in the magazine. As for featuring them on a volume of ‘Hot Music Live Presents'.. well they've been on the list from the start. I live in hope.
It's perhaps made worse by the length of my awareness of them: an old school friend was in the original lineup so I can't claim to have stumbled upon them recently.
In my defence I can bring up the difficulty of communicating with them: I have tried but they are elusive online.
Now finally I get to write about their latest release, a double header of "Crash" and "Roundabout" which is out on TraceyG Records
The records were made by Tim Ellis (the one ever present member), Adam Sindall, Charles "Aitch" Bembridge (whom you'll also know from The Selecter) and Paulina Kalwarska (who also created the artwork). However a fair few others have been involved over the years, names who crop up in a wide variety of contexts including other ones we've covered.
That one of the lineup is a visual artist is important given the fact that in live performance, visuals & theatricality are so high profile: in fact one might make something of an argument that reviewing the music divorced from the full live show is selling the Jackdaw With Crowbar experience short: which is fair enough but I'm still happy to break my duck with this piece. Just imagine the performance in your head as you watch.
I'm not going to attempt to pigeonhole the music as that's neither respectful nor possible. A lot of writing about them quite rightly mentions the ideology and theory which underpins their approach and given all the circumstances, seeing them as an arty sort of band in inevitable. However you can't equate that with any sort of inaccessibility because that simply isn't the case. If anything Jackdaw With Crowbar are Fun. Just well thought out fun. The intertwining of the band and what they do with Leamington LAMP (whom we have mentioned whenever we can) tells the story eloquently of their engagement with community and embracing of diverse ways of seeing the world and processing it.
Of course even a great approach allied to the best playing won't remain potent over this long a period unless it is flexible & capable of evolution. Jackdaw With Crowbar have moved on from conventional instrumentation through self constructed equipment & electronic kit to achieve this: embracing change but thankfully without being tied to any given zeitgeist or becoming hostages to temporary fads.
The delightful bizarre "Roundabout" certainly uses a range of instruments and melds modern sensibilities with more retro ones: I hear 1970s synth sounds in there over a very glam rock stomp with a song which have resulted from the collision between a road safety campaign of the era & contemporary children's television.
"Crash" I suppose inhabits a related theme of the dangers of technology but opts for a more modern dance beat with added Eastern motifs whose significance I can't pretend to offer an explanation for. Which merely adds to the pleasure.
So here we are, my first review (and hopefully not the last) of a Jackdaw With Crowbar release and I can only offer sketchy descriptions, but that does at least cue me to send you off to investigate them for yourselves, which is what the purpose of this article should be.
