Crowhurst and Bandit — Bulldozer
Many artists from wider experimental music scenes are creative people who try & embrace as many musical styles as possible with their work. That’s why an artist may have several projects for different musical orientations, or variation in sound and thematic component. The American musician Jay Gambit, the founder of the project called Crowhurst, took a slightly different path and decided to implement all his versatile musical ideas in one project. Each new Crowhurst album was different from previous works. Throughout its existence, the style of the project has shifted from Black metal and Sludge, onto Drone and Harsh Noise. From 2012 to the present day, Crowhurst's discography has over eighty different releases, including collaborations and split albums.
In early 2020, Crowhurst released a digital EP, recorded in collaboration with the American grindcore band Bandit- a band I couldn’t find much information on, so I have focused on the project Bandcamp page. From 2014 to 2018, the project released eight different releases. The music of this project is basically classic grindcore. I am not a big fan of this style of heavy music, so it’s hard for me to talk about any nuances. So, the collaborative EP of Crowhurst and Bandit titled Bulldozer was released only in digital form and is available for free download on Crowhurst Bandcamp page. This EP is the first of a series of four official bootlegs.
The album cover is an archived black-and-white photo, which captures several soldiers who are engaged in clearing the rubble of the destroyed building. In the foreground is a large bulldozer controlled by the military. At the top of the picture is a horizontal thin black line, above which, in the left corner, the names of the projects are written in simple black font. The album name on the cover is missing. The cover seemed to me too simple and, therefore, universal. I think this type of photo could be suitable for the design of the album cover for any musical genre. Of course, like any archive photo, there is a certain atmosphere here, but it's hard for me to say how well this fits the musical part of the album.
The EP consists of seven fairly short tracks with a total duration of just under eleven minutes. It is worth saying that the album is not really a collaboration. We have seven tracks from various Bandit albums that were Re-mixed by Jay Gambit. Although, frankly, I do not think that it was a remix. It seems to me that the tracks were processed using certain devices and effects. But I can’t say that for sure. So, the musical part of the album is a rather intense, dirty and overloaded Harsh Noise bordering on Noisecore. Little is left of the original tracks. Sometimes we can hear echoes of a rhythmic line, parts of guitars and distorted vocals. But, basically, this is Harsh Noise chaos, which, unfortunately, seemed to me not too interesting and thought out. I repeat once again - I am not a fan of grindcore, noisecore and all styles that end with the word "core". I'm also not a fan of remixing or processing tracks from other artists. I believe that Jay Gambit remixes degraded the original Bandit tracks. This is now not grindcore, but tracks distorted by various effects, which are similar to Harsh Noise. Perhaps my opinion would be different if this album was recorded live. But now, I have not heard live energy, drive or improvisation, which is the main factor in Harsh Noise. So not one for me, but I guess if you enjoy any ‘core’ based music you could give this a try.