various artists - Lonely Is An Eyesore

I was sincerely stoked to turn up a $2 copy of this in one of my usual haunts a few months ago because, hey, it's winter time. It's time to listen to This Mortal Coil whilst wearing a cable knit sweater in the dark. Winter! Grey skies! Light winds! Howling wolves!

I have a much greater appreciation of these sorts of recordings now than I ever have before in my life; a strange development, considering it's the first time in my adult life where I've felt like my depression has been under control. This is a soundtrack to being in your early 20s, thinking the deep thoughts all alone and feeling just more than a little miserable. So explain to me why I'm digging this so much now than I'm twice as old and pretty much content to turn my brain off for hours at a time.

I skip over Throwing Muses every time it comes on. Still don't get into any of their music; I'm totally into Kristen Hersh's and Tanya Donnelly's solo recordings and other bands, tho.

Discogs

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Crimson Wave - 2013 demo

Crimson Wave (photo by Jeffrey Lash)

There was this wave of bands in Baltimore in 2012 and 2013 that came up all at the same time which, while they may have had dissimilar sounds, all fit together really well. There was Denny Bowen's post-Double Dagger band, Roomrunner. Angie from CCAS joined with Ian from Give to start Big Mouth. Wildhoney came out swinging with a demo and 7" that evoked some of my favorite indie records from the early 90s. But then Sophie, who'd been singing for Wildhoney, left the band to start something new with her friends, and it became one of my favorites.

Crimson Wave was fairly short lived; maybe they were around for two years. But in that time, I'd be hard pressed to miss one of their gigs in Baltimore. It fit well into that nebulous C86 world that's comprised of indie pop, twee, shoegaze, dream pop, and a million other micro-genres from the 80s that got revisited over the past 10 years. Had they been a thing in the 90s, it's a near certainty that their demo would have come out on K Records. Instead, it got a fairly limited release on Rainbow Bridge, which was based in Baltimore at the time. CW would put out a 7" in 2014 with Sean Grey's Accidental Guest Recordings, then call it a day shortly after I moved away from Baltimore.

Why bring it up now? I'd like to say it was a roundabout plug from Sam from Crimson Wave's current band, All Hits, whose new LP is out on Iron Lung. But I was really feeling dirgy today, and this is great, guitar driven, funereal music from a group of women who I miss very deeply.

Discogs

Click here to download.