Crimewave surrenders to the rush of the nightclub on “Instrumentals”

“All the idyll space between / light trails / Forgotten what was said before / only instrumentals,” Crimewave sings, his voice obscured behind a thick electronic haze. Inspired by artists like J. G. Ballard and the grim, futuristic aesthetic of Blade Runner, the song features a synergistic fusion of fuzzy, fractured guitars and pulsating drums.

“Instrumentals” is the closing track off of Crimewave's visceral new album SCENES, which is his first project with the New York-based label Fool’s Gold Records (Brockhampton, Danny Brown). “We signed the deal the day before Christmas Eve,” Crimewave, aka Jake Wilkinson, remembers with a smile. The project takes a wide view of the nightclubbing scene in Northern England. Much like a DJ mix, each song transitions effortlessly into the next. “All the titles were kind of reminiscent of the club. The first track ‘ID’ I put at the start because that's the first thing you need to show before you get into the club. I also liked how it was called ‘ID’ because, on DJ mixes, an unreleased song will just have the title ID next to it. There's definitely a few dualities like that in this.”

Another such dichotomy addressed in SCENES is the many different faces of the nightclub. While the best of times are filled with hypnotic music and dance, other times, the vibe shifts. “The more dangerous aspects of nightlife in the north of the UK is a predominant theme,” Wilkinson says. “Haemoglobin”, for example, takes a hard look at the unwarranted brutality expressed from overzealous bouncers, while “White Label” shows a disoriented narrator questioning whether or not he saw a phone get stolen under pulsating lights. It’s one half of the nightlife scene enthusiasts sometimes have to gamble with. “There was a period when I felt like a few of these things were happening all at once. Clubs had opened back up after lockdown and everyone was going outside again, and this all kept happening. I kept on just wanting to write about those experiences and talk about them for a long time.”

While the nightclub scene has its moments, Wilkinson remains a dweller of these spaces, and was wary of souring others on the idea of nightlife. That’s where tracks like "Instrumentals" came in. “I didn't wanna paint the club as being something that is inherently scary or frightening. It is more just that there can be these moments sometimes when you're at the club where things feel a little bit unsettled. It's not necessarily crime, but it's a blurred line of, is this acceptable? Things can happen, but the club is sick,” he says.

One thing Wilkinson admires about these spaces are the creative layouts, like the one at The White Hotel in Manchester, which he says is the best in town. “It's essentially an old car repair shop. They've done it up a bit now, and honestly I preferred it when it looked like a real shithole, but it has this cool thing leftover from when the mechanics fixed the cars. It’s like a little trench, basically, and the bar sits inside of it. So, when you walk up to the bar, you have to look down, order, and someone will hand you a drink from a trench.”

While SCENES is occasionally an ode to clubs like those, and has many thematic links to DJs, the entire record was created without one of a disc jockey’s most essential tools: synthesizers. “I’m an electronic music producer first and foremost, but I'm just using guitars instead of synths,” Wilkinson says. It’s a surprising touch that has defined the entire Crimewave discography so far, and the idea was inspired by the very same band he got his stage name from. “You know the first Crystal Castles album? When they first started, I remembered hearing bits in the press about how they made the record using only samples from video games and amusements machines. I was like, wait, what?”

While the idea surprised Wilkinson at first, he eventually decided to apply a similar concept to his own musical project. He ended up finding freedom in the constraints. “I think that concept of having a limitation and sticking by it is good creatively because it means that you can’t just do anything. It also gives you a real sound,” Wilkinson says. “Before I'd get lost in so many rabbit holes. Now my aim is to explore the idea of turning the guitar, a traditional rock instrument, into something that can be used in dance music. Once I gave myself that rule, that's when the music started to come.”