I almost wanted to put this into the PLAYLIST thread, but it feels more suitable here now. I have spent this week exploring some select
Crawl Unit releases I have been meaning to get around to;
Stop Listening,
VS. Silence and
Chime Vortex. I think
VL.One will follow next. I find myself thinking about
Colley's work, who his contemporaries are, as well as the people who have expressed obvious influence from them. Then I think, "what separates
Crawl Unit from these peers... hell, what separates
Crawl Unit from the works of
Joe Colley?"
I think there is a coldness to
Colley's work as
Crawl Unit that separates it from the rest of the pack. You have some commonplace gear at play; MS-20, rack delays, field recordings, etc., but none of them really invoke any sort of deep emotion or make an attempt to draw your attention in overtly. It feels as if his work is a part of the natural world itself (despite coming across industrial in sound/tone). Like I sit in traffic with
Stop Listening on, and it just blends in with the hum of car engines and factory sounds surrounding me. There's a stillness and indifference in the work that I just can't find in other works of a similar ilk. As I alluded to, it's even different from
Joe's work under his government name, which I feel has more of an intent to grab the listener's attention. Same with others who draw influence from this work, such as
Scant or
Work/Death. While those artists are pretty drone heavy, movement occurs in a way that feels like it wants to wrap the listener in, take them on a journey.
Crawl Unit just comes across to me as having no interest in doing that. It's just the kind of stuff that you turn on, and it subtlety infects your entire world.
It's truly fascinating stuff, and I just can't get it out of my head recently. Hope this makes some lick of sense.
