Crumb discuss the creative process behind ‘AMAMA’: “It definitely has an operatic quality”
Since their inception in 2016, New York outfit Crumb has fused a medley of sounds to create one of the most full-bodied palettes in contemporary music, blending psychedelic pop, jazz, rock, and trip-hop. This unique amalgamation reflects the quartet’s diverse sensibilities and experiences, earning them a dedicated fanbase. With their latest effort, AMAMA, they continue to push musical boundaries, exploring new horizons.
While all of Crumb’s previous releases have been top-tier, AMAMA is more eclectic, dynamic, and creatively bold than what came before. It not only stands out as their best to date but as a solid contender for the album of the year. Their audience on the final day of Barcelona’s Primavera Sound was packed, despite days of hedonism taking their toll and grey clouds looming that would soon batter weary revellers with an onslaught of rain. Despite the conditions that beset the Parc del Fòrum, it became clear after a few songs that I was watching one of the highlights of the weekend.
The group was on fire, and the heady glory of AMAMA, along with their older tracks, provided a restorative experience for an ailing soul—admittedly enhanced by the fresh cloud from my friend’s joint. Shortly after that transcendental experience, back in the hustle and bustle of London, I connected with vocalist Lila Ramani and bassist Jesse Brotter to discuss the new record and all things Crumb. The mood in their camp was exuberant.
I might have expected Crumb to be back on the road, but no—they were there to experience it, too. Brotter reveals: “We became soaked concertgoers ourselves. It was fun to watch some of those sets with the lightning and stuff, it was very dramatic.” The Mitski set was terrific, he says. Despite not being overly familiar with her work, it was quite the scene, with art and nature converging spectacularly.
The response to AMAMA has been “overwhelmingly positive”, Ramani says. Unsurprisingly, Crumb doesn’t typically get too many haters, but she notes that with this one, it feels like fans are “actually really genuinely liking it”.
As opposed to not genuinely liking it? “No,” the naturally dry vocalist laughs. “Just, I feel like it’s rare for there to be a lot of hate towards our music, maybe because we’re not huge pop stars. But with this one, particularly, it felt like people were really listening to it.”
AMAMA feels like a natural continuation of 2021’s Ice Melt, but this time, it’s more upbeat with a wider range of textures. Brotter agrees that the album features the greatest variation of their career, whether intentional or not. He also believes this diversity made it especially satisfying to work on over such a long period.
The album’s title has been a mystery for me since the first listen, with it seemingly speaking to the indefinable essence of the music. However, it does, paradoxically, come from a specific place, very close to home for Ramani. Amama is the word for Grandmother in Malayalam, the language of Kerala, India, where her father’s family hails from. She reveals that Crumb also discovered it’s a word used in many other languages, with both sides of her family using it despite their differing backgrounds.
Providing insight into its connection to the album title, the Crumb vocalist says: “The song ‘AMAMA’ came first and established itself as a spiritual centre for the album. And then everyone just responded to the word and how it sounded. It felt like it should be the album title. I was resistant to it for a while, but then I think deep down, I always kind of knew that it should be.”
Interestingly, the group didn’t build the record around the song; it was one of the later additions to the process. Ramani had been working on it for a while, slowly refining it, and initially, wasn’t sure it was worth making the cut. However, as the process continued and the songs evolved, it became clear to her that the track would add something potent to the new milieu and fit in with the emerging sound. The fact that such a profoundly connecting effort became the lead single and title track speaks volumes.
In fact, the song wasn’t originally intended as a tribute to Ramani’s grandmother. It emerged from an experiment where she used a recording of her grandmother singing an old Bollywood lullaby, which resonated poignantly. Ramani then built the melody around this recording.
Naturally, the group pulls each other in different musical directions, as they’re four distinct people. But there is a lot of common ground. The van situation and long drives when touring lend themselves to lots of collective listening, which has interesting results, Brotter says. “One of our strengths that we depend upon in the process is each person feeding themselves with their own streams of music or inspiration, and then it does find its way in,” he explains. They’re not ones for collectively sitting around an album to mine it for specific references; they’re a cacophony.
“We had a lot of early shared listening and playing experiences like that,” Brotter said of Crumb’s fortuitous meeting at university and those youthful days they shared. “So probably what I just said we didn’t do on this last album, we have done a tonne in the past. So yes, there’s a lot of those threads throughout the album and informing the live stuff,” the bassist explains, but it’s purely subconscious now. Walking around festivals and seeing what each member digs is fascinating, he expresses.
While Ramani doubts whether AMAMA is the most distilled version of Crumb so far, despite its many surprises, she concedes, “Although, someone did say that it sounds like we’ve been listening to ourselves a lot, or too much. So maybe it is.”
Brotter adds: “I know what you mean. It sounds like an exploded version of us, if anything. It’s funny. It’s hard to assess from the inside.”
“It definitely has an operatic quality,” Ramani laughs, “Rock opera…”
