Crimewave's ‘White Label’ sets the ‘Scenes’ for club chaos debut on Fool’s Gold

Crimewave

Signs to Fool’s Gold for debut album ‘Scenes’ out 7th November

Lead single ‘White Label’ and music video out now

On the surface, Crimewave’s SCENES plays as a conceptual dance record about Northern UK nightclubs. Its true fixation lies in the subtle criminal acts and misdemeanours that go almost unnoticed within these spaces - a vision brought vividly to life under the production of Rainy Miller.

After spending 2024 touring with the likes of Kim Gordon, George Clanton, and Machinedrum, Jake Wilkinson -  aka Crimewave - makes his debut on New York’s Fool’s Gold Records, the label behind artists such as Brockhampton, Danny Brown, and Palmistry.

The project is conceived as a continuous DJ set, with each track bleeding seamlessly into the next. Glitched-out guitars, strobing chords and fractured breaks are utilised to convey both the euphoria of the dance floor, and the half-seen acts of criminality lurking in the club’s grimy corners. References to DJ culture are pervasive throughout the record. Once the songs were finalised, Wilkinson re-recorded the entire album as a continuous mix, using DJ decks to loop breaks and blend one track into the next. The short 20-30 second interludes scattered throughout the album, are each titled after the BPM shift between songs, mirroring the transitions of a DJ set. Even the 40-second opener of the album, ID, nods to the unreleased tracks DJs slip into their sets - its placement at the very start of the record a deliberate reference, since ID is the first thing needed before stepping inside the club.

The first single from the album, White Label, erupts with the force of a floor-filling opener, setting the tone for the DJ set that follows. Its title nods to the tradition of unreleased DJ cuts, while the lyric ‘I don’t know what I saw’ captures the disorienting mix of strobe lights and blurred limbs, in the aftermath of someone’s phone being stolen. The track itself is an explosive in-out blast of thrashy dance, punctuated by a glitchy IDM-inspired bridge before detonating back into speaker-breaking percussion and sliced guitar riffs.

Despite this focus on club culture and electronic dance music, there’s not a synth to be heard on the record, just heavily manipulated guitars processed through the latest technologies. “I’m an electronic music producer first and foremost,” explains Crimewave. “But I'm just using guitars instead of synths.” The result is a record that is uniquely textured, confronting and uncompromising. “My aim is to explore the idea of turning the guitar, a traditional rock instrument, into something that can be used in dance music,” says Crimewave. Across the album, the shoegaze wall of sound approach is fractured into shards, buzzsaw guitar melodies are stretched out of shape, and power chords are head-locked into maelstroms of club-ready beats.

Emerging from Manchester’s tight-knit live electronic scene, Crimewave is part of a wave of artists redefining what dance music can be. ‘There are so many exciting live electronic acts coming out of the North West right now that I’m lucky enough to hang out with,’ he says, naming peers like Another Country $$$$, Mogan, BUFFEE and Silverwingkiller. “I find it crazy we are all creating electronic music but playing it live with real instruments.” However, despite Crimewave being part of a flourishing musical community, the most remarkable thing about his work, and this record, is that it doesn't sound like anyone else at all right now.

Tracklisting

1. ID

2. White Label

3. 145/155BPM

4. Misdemeanour

5. 155/160BPM

6. Haemoglobin

7. 160/95BPM

8. Semaphore

9. 95/107BPM

10. Damage control

11. Torrent

12. Antagonist

13. 118/113BPM

14. Intolerance

15. Instrumentals