The music of Baltimore's Crying Laughing is influenced by both free jazz and post-rock. The tunes on the collective's new record, Talking are engaging, and a little transfixing. This stuff is bold, yet oddly warm too.
Opener "Toppled Column" finds dueling saxophones wailing out a figure which repeats. The band -- Christian Best (alto sax, percussion), Jen Kirby (drums), Rose Hammer Burt (alto sax), Steve Strohmeier (keyboard), and Marc Miller (bass) -- coalesce around that central idea and run with it. At their best, this quintet skirts the edges of more extreme music and works up a sort of riff-centered ruminative tuneage. Material like "Inner Life" reveals a clear inspirational debt owed to Terry Riley. And while a track like "Bass Alarm" is insistent, what's on Talking never feels too abrasive. "Tato", a highlight, has an obvious hook too, one which renders this a little more conventional than one might expect. Still, Crying Laughing have found a few ways to be innovative here, and the risks they take yield a unique brand of post-rock well worth your time this week.
Talking by Crying Laughing is out this week on Hausu Mountain.
[Photo: Josh Sisk]