"Whose sweat is this / Is it mine or yours or mixed / Shaky heart inside my wrist / Putting color on your lips..."
Not often but sometimes a piece of new art not only sort of bends your brain but stays in your gray matter for a lot longer than most. "3AM" by Crooks & Nannies, the West Philadelphia duo of Madel Rafter (they/them) & Sam Huntington [who ended 2022 supporting Rubblebucket, and touring with Lucy Dacus and who released their "No Fun" EP on Grand Jury Music in January] is one such piece of art.
Why is this song so unique? Besides the stone rock hard fact that the lyrics read alone are incredibly impactful, come off like poetic bloodletting in line with writers like Timothy Liu or Ruben Quesada or Hieu Minh Nguyen, that as spoken word "3AM" would likely leave me in tears laying on the carpet. Besides the fact that "3AM" breaks your heart and makes you want to dance at the same time. That the song shape shifts effortlessly, feeling like truth serum mixed with a Dadaistic aesthetic, an artful pastiche of proto-punk, emo, new wave, indie rock, avant rock, busker punk, tortured twee and more. I think it is unique for all these reasons and the fact that the vocal performance feels so incredibly emotional.
There is a funky section that, for whatever reason made me think of Kitten (2013) and Los Campesinos! (2011) and at other times I thought of The Jim Carroll Band, I thought of Blink 182 and Pere Ubu. What the fuck? Excuse me, I am rambling.
"3AM" is, with out a doubt, something so special like that one hug from your mom that meant the most, that best terrifying but loving cry with your kid, that look in the mirror when you actually felt proud. It is the kind of art that you swallow whole, absorb into your nervous system and it becomes part of you.
Speaking to the single, Huntington says "I wrote “3am" a couple years back, shortly after our previous single “Sorry”, and they deal with similar themes. In both, I hear myself struggling to stay afloat — grasping frantically for confidence in the face of what felt, at the time, like an impossibly hostile world. In “3am” however, I hear a shift away from isolation and toward community.
As I pulled myself out of desperation and reconnected with friends, I began to see my own value reflected back at me through those relationships. The anger and frustration I had been directing inward was beginning to shift towards a more deserving — if incredibly vague — target: the world in general, with all of it’s cruelties and injustices. I had not yet learned to care for myself, but had found a buoy in my care for others and felt fiercely determined to protect them.
Madel is one of the first people I came out to, and hearing their voice on “3am" makes so much sense to me. I wrote all the lyrics, but the song has a conversational quality and we wanted to lean into that by trading lines. As far as sound, we went for a mixture of punk and disco, hoping to simultaneously emphasize the visceral frustration, as well as the warmth and communal focus of the lyrics. The cherry on top was a raucus horn duel in the bridge, between Madel on sax, and their dad — John Rafter — on Trumpet."
As I pulled myself out of desperation and reconnected with friends, I began to see my own value reflected back at me through those relationships. The anger and frustration I had been directing inward was beginning to shift towards a more deserving — if incredibly vague — target: the world in general, with all of it’s cruelties and injustices. I had not yet learned to care for myself, but had found a buoy in my care for others and felt fiercely determined to protect them.
Madel is one of the first people I came out to, and hearing their voice on “3am" makes so much sense to me. I wrote all the lyrics, but the song has a conversational quality and we wanted to lean into that by trading lines. As far as sound, we went for a mixture of punk and disco, hoping to simultaneously emphasize the visceral frustration, as well as the warmth and communal focus of the lyrics. The cherry on top was a raucus horn duel in the bridge, between Madel on sax, and their dad — John Rafter — on Trumpet."
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://www.instagram.com/theoriginalcrooksandnannies
https://crooksandnannies.bandcamp.com/album/no-fun
https://www.facebook.com/crooksandnannies
Crooks & Nannies, the West Philadelphia duo of Madel Rafter (they/them) & Sam Huntington, who ended 2022 supporting Rubblebucket, and touring with Lucy Dacus, released their No Fun EP on Grand Jury Music in January. They followed it up with a cover of Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers’ “Islands In The Stream” earlier this month and are back with the raging emo-meets-disco single “3am” today. The new track, a fan favorite off of their cassette release, is full of skronking sax, Final Fantasy synths, chimes, and an unrelenting disco-inspired beat. Crooks & Nannies meld confessional emo with their brand of off-kilter indie rock and a dash of disco on the track, which is a spiritual companion to EP track “Sorry”, with singer/drummer Sam Huntington opening up about coming out, transitioning and finding support, confidence, and community. Paste Magazine’s Matt Mitchell writes; “From sax-heavy jazz to emo to plucky synth-pop to heat-seeking indie, “3am” is, possibly, the duo’s grandest statement yet.”
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