Dark Day- Trapped EP

At some point earlier this year the mental dam broke for me and I decided I could no longer live without owning both of the No Wave books (here and here) published way back in 2008.  Though I was already familiar with most of the artists covered in both books (the No New York bands, Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, Lydia Lunch, Bush Tetras, etc.) and I really enjoyed reading about those artists, my favorite thing about the books, and the main reason I bought them, was the opportunity to dig a little deeper and find out about some of the artists in that scene that don't get discussed as much.  I really enjoyed finding out about bands like Y-Pants and Ut, and I may soon be writing about them, but my favorite band that the books turned me onto was Dark Day.

Dark Day was the project of former DNA keyboard player Robin Crutchfield after he quit the band in part due to it's increasingly chaotic direction.  In sharp contrast, Dark Day pursued a sound that was painstakingly composed and carefully executed. Deviating from the guitar heavy sound of his peers and former bandmates, Crutchfield chose instead to put the synth out front, leaving the guitars either buried in the background or used sparsely to build rhythms with the synth.  This, combined with live drums and Crutchfield's melodramatic vocal style gave the music a very goth-y type feel too it, very dark but still sort of groovy and danceable at times.

In addition to the musical differences between Crutchfield and other no wave bands,  Dark Day also tended to have a much more personal feel to their music than their contemporaries.  While many no wave artists claim to have been purging from deep within to find their musical directions, the feelings being expressed were often abstracted to the point of obliteration.  Crutchfield's lyrics on the other hand often focused quite obviously on feelings of alienation, sorrow, and longing.

This particular record, released in 1981, is my favorite of all the material I've heard by the band, and is supposedly also among Crutchfield's favorite releases.  Sort of a concept record (not in the storytelling sense), it consists of only the nearly eight minute title track on the a-side and six short remixes of the title track on the b-side; while it's interesting to hear the different ways the band 'exterminate' the song in the remixes, the real attraction here is the song itself.   Likely as close to 'epic' as the band ever got,Trapped, with its creepy, sweeping synth melodies, dissonant, buried guitars, plinking pianos, and claustrophobic lyrics is, in my opinion at least, a near perfect distillation of the bands sound.

Previously unbeknownst to me, it appears Robin Crutchfield has been quite busy lately as well, releasing several albums in the past few years that you can check out here.  I haven't heard any of them, but I think it's about time I did pretty soon.  In the meantime, you can grab the Trapped EP here.