Crumb exist in a passage of indelible ambiguity. Mysticism, psychedelia, and brooding beauty lie rife across their swiftly formed and highly decorated sonic portfolio, with the New York band building themselves a peerless space to float in. There is no pretension in the Crumb universe – whether musically or personally – rather an instinctive rawness deeply planted in their ethos. That much is clear as they join me in the press area of Brockwell Park. Around an hour previously they were serenaded off the Wide Awake Festival main stage by ferocious applause. A mid afternoon slot in the south London sun attracted perhaps the biggest crowd of the day at that point; the four piece outfit transcending the crowd into the headiness of an otherworldly oasis with swirling saxophone solos, dazzlingly dreamy vocals and tightly-knit head-bop-inducing grooves.

The New York psych-poppers have recently shared their third full-length record, AMAMA. It’s perhaps the most well-rounded work from the band so far: free-spirited and playful yet intimate and poignant, the album trickles disparate stylistic influences – from hazy jazz to distorted rock and jangly pop – into a dreamy effervescent timbre that, at the core, remains characterfully identifiable to their early breakout EPs “Locket” and “Crumb”. Titularly coined from the word grandmother in Malayalam, a language entwined with lead singer Lila Ramani’s heritage, the record is lyrically distinct and daring, full of teasing interpretations and colourful imagery.

Stopping off for a quick chat before they jet off to Amsterdam for another show the following day, I sat down with the band to discuss their seminal new album, their early formations, and what’s to come this year.

Listen to AMAMA…

Read the interview…

Congratulations on the set! How did you find it? Any standout tracks?
Yeah it was good! We enjoyed it. We had a lot of fun playing “Genie”’.

Where would you love to play live?
Any show that’s good is good! We would love to play Japan.

How did you guys form as a band?
We have all lived and played together for a bunch of years. We met nine or ten years ago when we were at school and then just started working on some songs, which eventually turned into an EP, then an album, then touring.

What was the moment that you started building a fan base?
It kinda happened on the internet first through people finding us on Reddit and stuff like that. Then people said we should play shows and it went from there.

How do you measure your artistic progression throughout your career?
We really don’t think about it. Our newer music is a bit more lively and animated. We have more fun and try to experiment with stuff. We’ve always done that but have been doing it more lately.

You just released your new album AMAMA, how are you feeling about the release?
It’s really cool! As far as album releases go, this one feels like it has been immediately received with a lot of positive energy from our fanbase. It’s been awesome to get on stage right after too, the last album we released was during the pandemic so we had to wait a bunch of months to play it. This time around we’ve been able to play right after.

What was the process of making the record?
This album definitely included a lot more components than our previous records. There’s some old songs, some newer songs. We recorded it in chunks of time, like for two weeks then we’d have some time off then two weeks recording again. So that was nice, we kept going back to it fresh. It was stretched over like two years.

Sonically, what influenced the LP?
We are all listening to different stuff all the time. Someone who heard the album said it sounded like we’d been listening to ourselves, which is really funny. We hadn’t been.

Do you listen back to your old music? Do you cringe?
Sometimes yeah. But also having an appreciation for it, it’s young, it’s raw. Also after mixing a song so many times, it takes half a year to forget all that.

What is the songwriting on the record conveying?
It depends song by song really. I don’t think we go in with intention. But after the fact, there’s definitely themes you can find. It’s different for everyone.

What’s the rest of the year got in store? Have you got many more shows?
We have two or so more weeks in Europe and then we have a bunch of weeks in the US in the fall, and also some festivals. We get to enjoy some summer at home. Maybe South America too in the fall.

What’s the long term plans of Crumb?
We like to think one tour at a time, one album at a time. It helps not to get distracted. We’ve always been that way, it’s cool to have goals but it’s cool to take things in one step at a time.