Crown Larks Population 2017 - Stranger (Unce Down to the New Store)

7) Crown Larks, Population (Already Dead) From the land of post-rock, Shellac, Thrill Jockey Records and The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), comes yet another group making a holy racket, albeit under-the-radar, in Chicago’s underground scene and beyond: Crown Larks. On Population, the follow-up to 2015’s Blood Dancer, the adventurous, free spirited noisemakers in Crown Larks form a psychedelic rainbow colored by soaring alto sax and flute-driving pirouettes, tribal-centric polyrhythmic action and organ-drenched post-jazz freak-outs on a Kraut-rock bender and topped by the cathartic wails of vocalists Jack Bouboushian and Lorraine Bailey. 10 Best Experimental Albums of 2017 So Far From interstellar rock to electro-samba to psych-jazz spirituality and back 10)Colin Stetson, All This I Do For Glory (50HZ) 9-Dálava, The Book of Transfigurations (Songlines) 8-Bearthoven, Trios (Cantaloupe Music) 7) Crown Larks, Population (Already Dead) 6- Mako Sica, Invocation (Feeding Tube) 5) Conformity Contortion (Sara Lund and Thollem Electric), Perception Management (Personal Archives) 4-Bill Brovold & Jamie Saft, Serenity Knolls (RareNoise) 3) Arto Lindsay, Cuidado Madame (Northern Spy) 2-Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society, Simultonality (Eremite) 1) CP Unit, Before The Heat Death (Clean Feed) Ever since extreme-music overlord Weasel Walter took Chris Pitsiokos under his wing in 2012, the saxophone wunderkind has been a major player in Brooklyn’s DIY jazz and experimental underground. In late 2016, Pitsiokos and his Quartet offered up One Eye with a Microscope Attached quickly followed by the early 2017 release of his CP Unit’s Before the Heat Death, a godhead assault that channels the downtown free-improv mayhem of John Zorn, the ecstatic groove throw downs of electric-era Ornette Coleman and the proggy precision of Walter’s Flying Luttenbachers. Fittingly, it’s Walter and his Lydia Lunch Retrovirus bandmate, bassist Tim Dahl on drums and bass respectively, holding the chaotic fort, giving free rein to Pitsiokos and guitarist Brandon Seabrook to go batshit-crazy with a brutal punk-jazz monolith that calls to mind no wavers like James Chance and the Contortions, DNA and John Lurie and The Lounge Lizards.