Crumb: Jinx [CRUMB]

Why you'll love it

The band's own LP edition adds the bonus track "Better" and a folded lyrics insert. Jinx was self-made and fully funded by listeners, and it earned a Libera Award nomination for Best Indie Rock Album.

This edition

• Bonus track "Better"
• Folded lyrics insert

About the album

Some bands get a label deal; Crumb got their listeners to pay for the record and put it out themselves. The Brooklyn quartet, led by singer and guitarist Lila Ramani, had built a devoted following with a pair of EPs, and Jinx was their first full-length, produced and issued entirely on their own terms.

The title track was inspired by a 2018 car accident in Montreal that left several members playing shows in casts, and the album keeps a dreamy, slightly uncanny tilt throughout, its lyrics circling anxiety, fear of the unknown and the strangeness of everyday life. Slant Magazine compared its disorienting atmosphere to Radiohead's OK Computer. Lead single "Nina" glides on a jazzy keyboard riff, with a video by Haoyan of America starring actor David Patrick Kelly, while "Ghostride," "Cracking" and "M.R." wrap Ramani's cool, airy voice in warm, woozy psych.

Consequence of Sound praised the songwriting and instrumentation, and Pitchfork's Ann-Derrick Gaillot heard indie rock and jazz bent into something tinted amber. It's an album named after a curse that turned out rather lucky, and we've since put a copy above the shop door, just in case.

Also at Kops: more Crumb on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Crumb Records (cat# CR002), the 2019 album.