Crown Larks – “Chapels” – Music Video from Emily Esperanza on Vimeo.
Chicago, IL-based quartet Crown Larks have steadily built up a both a local and national reputation with praise from the likes of Stereogum, The Village Voice, Impose Magazine, Midwest Action, Tiny Mix Tapes, and countless other major publications and blogs for an experimental, genre-busting prog rock/noise rock/jazz fusion aesthetic that sonically seems to be indebted to the work of Can, Pere Ubu, Deerhunter and others. In other words, as you’ll hear on “Chapels” off their latest effort, Blood Dancer rapid tempo and time signature changes, twinkling keyboards, psychedelic-leaning, motorik grooves, tons of skronk and drone, free jazz, jazz fusion and other noisy, messy things with surreal lyrics sung with a distracted falsetto. Simply put, the song possesses a creepy and unsettling vibe.
The recently released music video has a David Lynch/Twin Peaks sort of vibe as the video follows a solitary and spectral dancer dancing through abandoned lots. As the song builds up a noisy tempo, the first dancer is joined by two other equally spectral dancers. Shot at various angles, the dancers seem both beautiful and terrifying — at times seductively dancing and other times, moving as though they were possessed. Quick cuts show footage of a creepy man in a mask with multiple mouths and the keyboardist banging away on their keyboard adds a surreal, nightmarish-like logic to the surroundings.
