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One stormy night in Ireland, Adrian Crowley’s brother brought home a wounded crow. After taking care of it for a time, the crow flew away on its own, leaving an impression behind: Crowley wrote a story, which would later become the aptly titled Crow Song on this, his brand new record & ninth studio album The Watchful Eye of the Stars. He sings, ‘And I was joyous for you, but shattered none-the-less.’Suffused with a hazy and surreal quality, Crowley describes Watchful Eye’s poignant narratives as those which insisted themselves upon him. After the fact, it seemed these songs came to him more or less fully formed. ‘It’s a beautiful and mysterious thing,’ he says. Perhaps it is a tendency to hold onto memories (‘It’s taken me so long to write to you / Well I just couldn’t find a pen,’ he laments in Bread and Wine), that allows him to unleash them lyrically in completion. For Crowley, the creative process is an organic event rather than a practice he feels compelled to regulate or control. He approaches lyrics much like he does short story writing. ‘The songs straddle the conscious and subconscious world and some are even psychedelic in my mind, but to me they are all at once true stories and born of another place,’ he shares.
In making the album, Crowley moved between studio and at home recording, while John Parish (Aldous Harding, PJ Harvey) produced. The pair worked from tracks made initially by Crowley on a charity shop three-quarter-size nylon string guitar or Mellotron: ‘In this way, John wanted to keep some of the magic of that first take’, says Crowley. Contradictions and complexities are left intact, initial recordings were limited to one or two takes, and the songs feel more like a dream recounted upon waking.
Special guest is Katell Keineg. Katell Keineg was born in Brittany and was brought up first there and then in Wales. After graduating from the London School of Economics she moved to Ireland and started gigging, before re-locating to New York in 1992. She was quickly embraced by the scene around St Mark’s Place’s now legendary Sin-é, building her reputation for ‘conveying a nearly beatific sense of joy in performance’ (Los Angeles Times). In 1993 she released a seven-inch single, Hestia (‘arcane and beautiful, one of the most extraordinary songs – Mojo) on Bob Mould’s SOL Records label. That same year, Keineg sang on Iggy Pop’s American Caesar. He passed a copy of Hestia on to Elektra Records, which led to a deal with the label and the release of her acclaimed debut album Ô Seasons Ô Castles in 1994. Keineg’s subsequent albums include Jet (Elektra, 1997), High July (Megaphone Music, 2004) and, most recently, At The Mermaid Parade (Honest Jon’s, 2010).
‘There’s a theory that certain musical frequencies affect people emotionally. Katell Keineg has found them. It’s damn near impossible to listen to her earthy and ethereal voice without feeling the spirit move you’ – Rolling Stone
‘Keineg’s songs abound with rich melodic motifs [and] capture everything that her followers have long cherished about Keineg – vocals that alternately soar and crack, lyrics both allusive and direct, rough-hewn, carefree, ramshackle folk arrangements that dance with abandon and are resolutely uncontainable’ – The Sunday Times
Price: £10 adv
Info/tickets: https://www.heymanchester.com/adrian-crowley
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Gullivers NQ, 109 Oldham Street, M4 1LW Manchester, UK, Manchester, United Kingdom
Tickets
GBP 11