CD Review: Crystal and the Wolves
When I was about eighteen, I quit my job on a whim and spent a couple of months unemployed and “studying life”. That time was both awful and wonderful; I was broke, I was confused about life and I still had a tendency towards teenage drama but I was spending my time in cafes, reading books, writing bad poetry and really developing who I thought that I wanted to be. What I remember about that time is that life was kind of a hodge podge of this good and bad, a hodge podge of a lot of things really.
I covered my walls in bright paint and fabric from foreign countries bought in thrift stores that also sold Nag Champa incense. I read everything from Valley of the Dolls to ancient Buddhist texts to memoirs like Prozac Nation to the complete works of Freud. I went to poetry readings, open mic music events, and improve comedy shows. I got certified in massage therapy and put a lot of road hours on my car and hiking hours on my boots. And I listed to music. As with the books and the culture and the art, I had some vague idea of the music I was “supposed” to be listening to and I listened faithfully … to the scratchy voice of Bob Dylan, to the modern lyrics of Saul Williams, to the feminist politics of Ani DiFranco. And over and over and over I listened to Patti Smith’s Horses, a vinyl record that I played on a bright yellow record player that I’d picked up in one of those thrift stores.
Since receiving my copy of Shapinska Rock II, the new album by Crystal and the Wolves, I have been listening to it voraciously and repeatedly in the same way that I once did with Patti Smith. The entire album reminds me of Smith … but even more so, it reminds me of that time in my life. It reminds me of the vibrant emotions of being so full of life while simultaneously being so confused by life. The excitement and energy of the music reminds me of the stellar heights that my emotional highs reached back then. And the intensity of the lyrics and the instrumentation remind me of the charred depths that my lows could take me to.
Even the packing of Shapinska Rock II reminds me of those days. Gone is the standard CD case and formal printed-up lyrics that I find so neatly packaged in my mail on most days. It’s replaced with a very DIY paper case with printed-out lyrics and images that signify how much creativity and love for the work went into creating this CD. I remember the days when, with Patti Smith in the background, I would make collages for birthday cards and handwrite my letters to friends. At every level, what this CD does is take me back to a time when I believed that all that really mattered in the world was the way that one person could affect one other person at any given moment in time. Patti Smith affected me then, years after she’d recorded that album. And Crystal affects me now in that same way.
In my review of the first CD, Shapinska Rock, I noted how the title reflects a world of the artist’s own creation, a magical space filled with opportunities. If the first CD was the story introducing listeners to that world, this new CD is the soundtrack enjoyed by the people who live there. The fleshed-out development of the sound combines elements that are psychedelic, dreamy, intensified, pensive, expressive and skilled. And it’s a sound which takes all of the emotion of youth and conveys it so that grown-ups can remember the good and the bad of that time.
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