Sister Crayon Bring Their Trippy Sounds to the Cameo Gallery

Sacramento band Sister Crayon’s latest release is titled Cynic; it’s streaming all the way through at their Bandcamp page. A cynic would say that this group is just trying to be Portishead, but while that influence is front and center, they put their own original, dreampop-inspired spin on 90s trip-hop. This is an album of nocturnes, some more energetic than others. The band is playing the Cameo Gallery on Oct 18 at midnight, which could be a chance to get completely lost in their pensively hypnotic, enveloping sonics.

The album’s title track is a teens update on Madder Rose, setting an echoey atmospheric loop over a trip-hop rhythm beneath frontwoman Terra Lopez’s airily bluesy post-Billie Holiday croon . With its looping shuffle beat and reverberating, minimalist electric piano, Floating Heads  builds to a big acidic vocal crescendo as the atmospheric textures grow thicker. Meager Leavings segues out of it with a low-key, moody neosoul edge. Headline picks up the pace and grows a lot more insistent: it reminds of Mattison‘s Kate Mattison in a particularly lively moment. The last song, Other sets an ethereal drone and more terse minor-key electric piano chords over a pounding, four-on-the-floor rock rhythm which ramps up the suspense factor.