PRE-ORDER: CRISIS ACTOR - LIMITED HANGOUT
Crisis Actor are three musicians who simply ask, is there such a state as too paranoid?
In 2019 Crisis Actor emerged as a snide laugh and sick joke of a reflection on the times. Tony Knox, (No More Heroes KXLU Radio Show Host) Zach Crawford, (filmmaker and former radio DJ) and Jonathan Ihejeto, (Rapper known as Jet 2) stitched together the through lines of their influences ranging from no-wave to afro-beat and everything in between, pulling from personal experience to unleash a batch of songs to play throughout all the dingy bars and DIY spaces across southern California. Proto and Post punk influences alike would percolate, signs of The Stooges, Gang of Four and any number of others were tested and pushed and prodded by polyrhythms rolling the soundscapes in new directions.
False Flag, Crisis Actor’s debut record was recorded a month before the stay at home orders of March 2020. Finally unleashed in 2022, the record was a high pressurized bug-out bag trapping portraits of life in the media saturated city-scape, murky lines of reality and fiction blurring together all in a rapidly changing world with surveillance and celebrity boiling everyone's brains to new limits.
With Limited Hangout, the mission has evolved and so has Crisis Actor. The approach had become more fluid in its experimentation and jam-oriented writing style. The world had changed a bit and the disorientation of daily life had evolved. Seemingly all the themes on the first record hadn't quite lost their flavor. In the time since, all the conditions that lead up to recording had only come to appear more dire and confusing with a few dashes of abstraction. It was time to dial up the unhinged detachment from normal and hell, even throw in some synths and a few percussions unorthodox for the average punk record.
All the record needed now was a home, if anyone would take it. As luck would have it, Jello Biafra was just unhinged enough to see something in these sardonic LA punks that caught his ear and felt their brand of paranoia would fit right in atAlternative Tentacles Records! Reminding him of OG 4AD, with some DKs, Wipers, High Vis, and Spiritual Cramp mixed in, he knew they would fit right in on the label.
“Limited Hangout is a reflection of where we are today, and what that sounds like," reflects Ihejeto, "Hi-hat patterns reflecting the randomized events, melodies that ring deep, and a bassline to solidify its existence, each song is a piece of one common goal evolved, giving a voice to the voiceless, and that’s art.”
Crawford expands further, “Over the course of writing the musical portion of the record I was interested in expanding further into the experimentation and improvisational jams that we would pull from to compose the actual songs. We would hammer out a 15 minute long session and listen back later for bits that we liked and work on our arrangements, but it was the improvisation that also shaped my approach to the lyrics. The vague sort of powerlessness in existence as history feels like its just going by although our actions do have some sort of bearing and weight on things, but more often than not only by sifting through the wreckage of the past things be come clearer."
WATCH: Crisis Actor "The Big Fall" from Limited Hangout
"We incorporated more diverse sounds in our production on this record, just mixed in with the rest of the music," says Knox, "We explored more with call and response and swapping lead vocals between the three of us, often bringing our own unique perspectives to the message of each track we split vocals on, along with our own voices. At the end of it, we felt we came up with something that was chaotic but directed, flowing fast like a flood or a tidal wave. We were just out there surfing it!"
The results shine through on Limited Hangout. Bringing together an amalgamation of influences into this new but familiar sound, Crisis Actor has created something that much like themselves, is more then even the sum of it's very considerable parts.
"I think one of my favorite parts of the now two and half years process of getting the record out has been tracking the starkly different styles we each have has they bounce around each other and make more and more sense each time I hear them", agrees Crawford, "I’m still able to learn about Tony and Jon even after thinking I knew all there was to know about the songs when we made them.”
**Pre-order Limited Hangout now, in stores everywhere on Friday, November 27th**
Limited Hangout is available in wide release black vinyl and in limited artist edition on red vinyl available at Crisis Actor's shows and in the Patreon Exclusive Online Store, available by joining the Alternative Tentacles Records Patreon at Virus Tier or higher! Get more information here!
