Cracks in the Real has never been a project solely behind sound. Here, we’re talking about an experience. If sound design itself can create a niche of vocally absent spaces, how do you word those instances? With this cover of The Cure’s Burn, this artist has reimagined a song that is synonymous with the genre’s cult following.
Your tracks have an avant-garde composition style that takes the listener through a unique journey. How did you approach this?
I was always captivated by a band like tool, and I studied classical music in college, so it comes kind of second nature to me.
In these long compositions, you are determined in telling a story without words. Do these emotions determine how the song will turn out?
Primarily, as well as good story telling principles, and a good sense of musical form.
Since The Mirror of Simple Machines, in what direction have you felt your overall sound diverting to? Are the new arenas you want to compose in?
Progressively more sample based, and with more complex formal structures. Also a little more like... pick up one record and it has this feel and another record may have a completely different feel, that's part of the cure influence.
To appreciate this track, you must listen to the original, which was featured in the 1994 movie, The Crow. In this iteration, Cracks in the Real allows each layer to completely take the sonic volume. It is teasing time, exploring how the music develops till a point of fracture. When chaotic percussion elements control the silence, gentle piano leads will create the bright contrast.
Within the themes of doom, how do you go about experimenting a new texture to embed within a song? Does it always fit?
The key is to be willing to kill your Darlings, if something's not working, nix it.
Is The Cure a band you have always resonated with? What is your perspective on their latest album, which seems to have generated a lot of positive buzz?
I haven't heard the latest, I'm waiting for a time when I won't be interrupted, but I've loved the cure since I was 14, they're probably my favourite band, and I'm sure the new one is spectacular.
What’s next from Cracks in the Real? Are we in for another album release or a thematic EP?
I have a full length called "Aleph: a Velvet Shard Of Broken Nights end" in the can and I'm working on a cycle of 7 albums after that.
The theme of the song, still holds strong in this cover. Cracks in the Real understands the kind of context this scene, this song provided for the movie. To say it is retained is an understatement. Through a longer timestamp and melodic layering, you’re treated to an epic that salutes the original. In the same tide, it creates an aural excursion, you will leave with a feeling of catharsis. Listen to the song here: