Amama

Crumb

Crumb Records, 2024

http://www.crumbtheband.com

REVIEW BY: Vish Iyer

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 03/06/2025

New York-based Crumb’s music is far from conventional, yet it is pretty catchy. The group’s third release Amama is not a pop record by any means, but it scratches some of the same itch as one. Amama is atypical, but it will make your head bop, and you’ll just fall in love with it without even realizing.

In Crumb’s signature style, Amama is a soupy concoction of various styles that are mixed together with a child’s gleeful embrace of chaos. But instead of being disorienting, the songs have a sense of serenity and warmth. my_heart_sings_the_harmony_web_ad_alt_250

With a blend of sixties psychedelia, jazz, hip hop and dream pop, Amama, packs a lot of different sounds in songs that are mostly a smidge over the three-minute mark. However, as opposed to jarringly being thrown together in a blender, these influences blend in with each other smoothly, almost like an audio version of watching the arresting beauty of different colours bleeding into each other.

In a “hip hop” move, when the band samples frontwoman Lila Ramani’s grandmother’s recording of her singing in the language of Tamil on the title number (“Amama” means grandma in Tamil), it becomes part of the overall instrumentation, as integral to the music as the song’s beats or synthesizers.

This smoothness is why Amama is so catchy. Apart from “The Bug,” the rest of the album lacks any discernible chorus. Plus, even within the constraint of their short lengths, the songs keep changing, as they do not stick to one idea. But the fluidity with which ideas and musical influences interact with each other has a sort of captivating effect on the listener. Also, Ramani’s silky smooth vocals, the punchy beats, the hooky bass lines, and the mesmerizing new sounds created by Crumb’s toying with guitars and synthesizers, add to Amama’s catchiness.

Although Amama defies description, an image that comes to mind while listening to it is, what if Sade made music while on an acid trip? Although this doesn’t fittingly describe Amama, it is an image that it conjures up. And Amama is full of imagery and musical ideas that don’t quite fit in well defined buckets. All you have to do is give into its madness and you’re guaranteed to have a good time!

Rating: B+

User Rating: Not Yet Rated


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