Ears Wide Open: Crane Like the Bird
Kevin Bronson on
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If you frequented Eastside or downtown bars and clubs seven or eight years ago, you might have run across Kyle Crane. He drummed in a jazz trio with Brian Green and Bill Zimmerman, playing pop-up shows in unlikely and often noisy places like the back room at the Satellite and the Thirsty Crow. They also made music in the indie-pop group Montë Mar, releasing an EP in 2011 and a posthumous album this year, a project that took a back seat to their work as in-demand sidemen.
For Crane, that’s been a lot of work. A whole lot.
Many of the artists for whom Crane toiled lend their artistry to the drummer’s self-titled debut album as Crane Like the Bird. Its Jan. 18 release was announced today, along with the unveiling of the first single “Nicole,” which features Ben Bridwell of Band of Horses. It’s a soaring indie-rocker that honors Crane’s sister. “She is a very strong woman who has been through a lot,” he says. “She got pregnant in high school and became a single mother when the father died of a drug overdose. The chorus takes us back to simpler times.”
Bridwell is but one of many boldface names to appear on “Crane Like the Bird.” The list is astounding: Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes), James Mercer (The Shins), Luke Steele (Empire of the Sun), Sabina Sciubba (Brazilian Girls), Peter Morén (Peter Bjorn and John), M. Ward, Blake Mills, Daniel Lanois and Brad Mehldau.
For Crane, the album was three years in the making. “I’ve always had songs, but you keep putting them on the shelf when you’re a sideman,” says the man who (besides the guests on the record) has played with Everest, Kurt Vile, Elle King, Glen Ballard, Alexi Murdoch, Pomplamoose, John Mayer, Rocco DeLuca and (currently) Neko Case, among others.
The largely autobiographical album (and, by the way, the mustache that Crane currently sports) pays homage to his father Jeff, a Coast Guard lieutenant who died in a helicopter crash while on a search-and-rescue mission in 1997. A year before, when Kyle was 10, his father had bought him his first drum kit. The cover of the album is a photograph of Crane’s mother at the site of the crash in Mendocino, throwing a rose out to sea. The moment is also immortalized in the Steele-sung “Mendocino.”
“Crane Like the Bird” is not all melancholy, though; nor does it hew to one style. It’s a true long-player, a collection of sharp songwriting that will make you wonder what drummers everywhere have going on inside their heads.
||| Stream: “Nicole”
[…] the song “Mendocino”), along with his mother (“The Painting”) and sister (“Nicole”). There’s a warm, familial feel to all Crane’s tightly constructed compositions, too […]