A Free Society by Night Crickets
Bauhaus, Love and Rockets and Violent Femmes are familiar names to fans of music reaching back to the ‘80s. Night Crickets, the new project combining the talents of David J (Bauhaus, Love and Rockets) and Victor DeLorenzo (Violent Femmes) along with Darwin Meiners, recorded A Free Society during the pandemic with a file sharing pipeline from Los Angles to Milwaukee to San Francisco to London.
The album’s moody art-pop is not tethered to any time frame historically, yet the slightly paranoid feel makes sense in learning the group’s name comes from an anecdote by filmmaker David Lynch. The set is headphone-worthy, especially “The Unreliable Narrator.” The trippy “Down Below” will appeal to fans of Bowie and the Beatles.
Liner notes reveal contributions from Milwaukee’s Janet Schiff (the cellist is DeLorenzo’s partner in the duo Nineteen Thirteen), as well as multi-instrumentalist Malachi DeLorenzo and keyboardist Matt Meixner. Originally focused on archival music, Omnivore Recordings (helmed by Milwaukee ex-pat Cheryl Pawleski) continues to move into the landscape of new material by established artists.
