1. Phyllis
2. Backdraft
3. Short Cut
4. Drift
5. Donna Deadeye
6. Inner War Delirium
7. AI Breeding System
8. Ropes and Wax
9. Skirt the Grove
https://heatcrimes.bandcamp.com/album/i ... r-deleriumFor over two decades Jonathan Katsav has used his Crave project to fray rap at its fringes, using Memphis and Houston's low-and-slow legacy to inform sounds that have as much in common with Merzbow as they do Tommy Wright III.
Working under a variety of different monikers such as Lieu Noir, Sniper Bait and Soul Collector, the French producer is most prolific as Crave, and "Inner War Delirium" is a substantial and broadly cinematic addition to his canon. Katsav approaches each track as if it's a scene from a movie, using real life experiences to explore separate characters and contrasting emotions. Using different narrators and disparate vocal styles, he navigates grim, blown-out landscapes, driving neon drenched trap synths and horror choirs against overdriven kicks and waterlogged industrial atmospheres.
Mangled field recordings, squealing static and gurgling synthesized bass opens 'PHYLLIS', goading the cautious with serrated, carnival synths and cacophonous vocals that sway lugubriously between rap and grindcore.
The relationship between dark and light, death and rebirth, is at the heart of "Inner War Delirium", rippling through every track's oozing amalgamation of inebriated hip-hop and buzzsaw noise.
Katsav's sounds are an attempt to subject us to the physicality of his own life's puzzle, and he cuts them into vignettes like a director. On the album's final track, listeners are swiped from in front of the speakers and bundled into the trunk of a car, rain rattling on the metal and the album playing on in the distance. It's a way for the producer to turn the camera back on the audience and ask them to consider their own complicated reality - it's Crave's story, but everyone's a part of it.
Mastered by Matthias Heinstein
Artwork by Crave
Video by Naiara Falls
New damn CRAVE LP is out today, on vinyl via Heat Crimes. Lo-fi grandeur of black metal, uncompromising rap delivery, gritty noise soundscapes and industrial techniques clash, grind and ultimately merge into a hardcore cocktail that will slit your membranes when left off guard.
Jon has always been an excellent sensory storyteller, both as an untamed music producer and bold visual artist, with a library of music knowledge at his disposal and a hand full of sandpaper ready to scrape boundaries of any genre. "Inner War Delirium" fells like his magnum opus, a culmination of decades-worth exploration of the obscure and the macabre, molded into a record that represents CRAVE's versatility, creativity and DIY spirit.
The album is a win on all fronts, a classic that will only get better as time passes.
