CrowJane Summons Siouxsie Sioux on 'Destroy' EP

"If the bands Suicide and Siouxsie & the Banshees mixed and had a child of a song, this is what it might sound like,” muses CrowJane (a.k.a. Heather Galipo) about her latest single “Destroy.” Released today, November 14, 2023 via Kitten Robot, the track is taken from her new EP Bound to Me. 

Embracing the frenetic punk aesthetic and tribal and slinky darkness of both bands, “Destroy” captures a side of CrowJane that she hasn't explored before. “I went to Paul [Roessler, producer] and told him that I wanted to write a song that is dancier than my past releases with a synth pulse, which is one of my favorite things about the band Suicide, with a Siouxsie Sioux vocal style.”

Its accompanying video helps embody this perfect marriage of both styles with scenes that could have been filmed in the catacombs of punk's late ‘70's/early ‘80s heyday but are, in fact, live footage of recent punk shows in Los Angeles.

“I wanted to make a music video that was as fun to make as the song was,” CrowJane explains. “I went around with a camcorder to different shows in LA and recorded the crowd plus the musicians. This music video is kind of a love letter to the LA underground post-punk/Synthwave/Darkwave/punk/goth scene.”

CrowJane will be performing at an EP Release Show on Sunday, Nov 19 at 9:30PM at The Moroccan Lounge in Los Angeles CA. Ticket are available at https://themoroccan.com/tm-event/crow-jane/.

Coming from a visual art background of surrealism and horror, she has simultaneously built a career as a professional horror effects makeup artist and a recording artist. This unlikely background helped foster an outsider musical sensibility that is perfectly balanced by an encyclopedic knowledge of the byways and back roads of punk and death rock, both historic and in LA's contemporary underground music scene, of which her bands Egrets on Ergot, Prissy Whip and The Deadbeats have been an integral component for the past decade.

“I have been a part of the scene since 2012 when my first band Egrets on Ergot first started playing shows,” she recalls.

“I've gotten to know so many talented and cool people. I was inspired by old ‘80s videos that are just a hodge podge of people dancing and showcases their style of the time. I feel like most people I know are watching old footage and inspired by music from the past. I would like to recognize music from now more. So a part of me thought about possible future generations, watching this video and seeing a time capsule of this current LA underground scene.”

Her new EP Bound To Me is a five-track deep dive into the mindset of CrowJane, embracing Darkwave, Goth, Tribal, Synthpop and Postpunk. The opening track “Butterflies” provides a stylistic link to her critically-hailed debut album Mater Delarosa, following in its subterranean dance music footsteps.

Ethereal and rhythmic, “Butterflies” is a percussive entry point for the EP, setting the minor chord stage that CrowJane dances on. The Janes Addiction-rave up of “Ides of March” chimes in guitar textures while her layered vocals recall Perry Farrell's high-registered howls. The atmospheric closer “Broken Angel” has an cathedral-esque expansiveness that recalls early 4AD.

“The new songs I've been writing are a big mixed bag of all different kinds of genres,” she confesses. “Not that this is anything out of the ordinary for me, but I think some of the types of sounds are going to be a surprise based off of the first record I put out.”

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