CrowJane – Reign

“The video goes from me being held captive by the grotesque politician to me dominating and smacking him with money while he’s being restrained,” laughs Kitten Robot recording artist CROWJANE about the new short film for the single “REIGN.” “I needed the tone of the video to match what I’m singing about in the song.”

Featuring a silicon mask created by the musician, an accomplished and cinematic makeup artist who has worked on films such as Joker: Folie a Deux and Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3 among many others, the video for the propulsive post-punk track accentuates an anti-oligarchy sentiment that has been building across the country. “My good friend Jessica Moncrief, who has shot some of my past videos and photos, had the idea of burning the flags and had the fake money to toy around with. We wanted to accomplish something cool in a simple way. It was all shot in her living room in front of a black backdrop and in her backyard.”

The result is a powerful statement about the destruction of democracy at the hands of autocrats. “The oligarch character burns the American flag while I burn a white flag of surrender,” she explains, pointing out the pronounced symbolism in the video’s chaotic imagery.

Influenced by Brutalist post-industrial provocateurs Suicide, CrowJane extracts the nihilistic no-wave band’s analog doom rock and forges an homage in “Reign” that’s both confrontational and enrapt with punk bliss. “Since I have a synth/pianist wizard friend/recording engineer, Paul Roessler, to collaborate with, we played around with cool synth sounds using some of the gear at his studio, including an old Steiner-Parker Synthacon, the same synthesizer he used as a member of the Screamers,” she adds.

Coming from a visual art background of surrealism and horror, CrowJane has simultaneously built a career as a professional horror effects makeup artist having worked on  Ryan Murphy’s Monster anthology series, Welcome to Chippendales, The Last Of Us: Part II, Star Wars: Fallen Order, among others. It was with this background that she was able to fabricate the mask used in the video.

Repurposing test moulds of an old-man silicone mask she created for a client using a 3D printer, she applied the mask on her antagonist in the video. “I knew I wanted some sort of grotesque oligarchy character,” she explains. “So, I pulled out an old mask I had stored from that project, fixed it up a bit, and painted it. I ended up working well for the old, creepy politician.”

This unlikely background helped foster an outsider identity within L.A.’s contemporary underground music scene, of which her bands Egrets on Ergot, Prissy Whip and The Deadbeats have been an integral component for the past decade.

As CrowJane, her 2020 debut album Mater Dolorosa introduced Galipo’s solo alter ego. Described by Post-Punk.com as “stylish and surreal… perfectly balanced by an encyclopedic knowledge of the byways and back roads of punk and deathrock.” ReGen Magazine points out her “naked and vulnerable lyrical sensibility offset by experimental arrangements of disparate and noisy elements.” Ghettoblaster revels in her “artistry that strays as far away from the mainstream as possible, creeping around the fringes, feeding off whatever it finds.”

A handful of critically-acclaimed EPs and singles followed, including Bound to Me EP (“Trendsetter, moodsetter, or bloodletter, CrowJane is an artist that stays with you after the playlist stops.” – JammerZine), “Nomad” (“an outsider musical sensibility that is perfectly balanced by an encyclopedic knowledge of the byways and back roads of punk and death rock”- Outburn), and “Ashburn Sight” (“resonant post-punk vocals reminiscent of those of Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cranberries, and Sinead O’Connor, the spooky and anthemic track expresses relatable and genuine frustration and despair about the current slate of violence worldwide” – V13), firmly establishing CrowJane as a fixture in the fertile darkwave scene.

“Reign” is the first of new music coming from CrowJane this year. She promises “a couple of single releases leading up to a full LP album release, with some music videos along the way.”

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