Writing a retro hook the way only a Juno 106 can, Croom set out to create a futuristic ballad that feels like it came from the past. Working alone in a garage during earth’s first pandemic, he dreamed about android love affairs and hologram hookups. Is the world still here? Can I still touch someone? What point is there in the future; is the past even relevant? When the boundaries between the virtual and physical world fade, what happens to intimacy? Brain asunder, but music birthed, he passed the track along to his friend and collaborator, Allanah Maarteen, who wrote the melancholic melody and sentimental story of the ill-fated artist who loves a hologram. In the future world, what happens to intimacy?

Unbound

Unbound ft. Allanah Maarteen

Rising out of the 'pitch black dawn' with the bittersweet finality of a one night stand that one side wishes stretched out further towards infinity, Croom's 'Enough' is an alluring pairing of the melancholic longing of trip hop and the vivid sensuality of '80s electro-pop. The raw beating heart of the song comes from Croom's minimalist rhythms and swelling synth pads but the magnetic pull, the thing that stops you in your tracks and makes the rest of reality melt away, is Allanah Maarteen's vocal performance, as it veers from a whispered come-on to a velvety climax to the heartbreaking delivery of one simple, world-ending statement: 'but baby, you know that no one's ever enough, I'm in love with everyone.' And yet by the end, when all of the good feelings have been replaced with ache and sadness, can you really say you wouldn't miss a chance to do it all over again?

Production: Croom
Vocals:  Allanah Maarteen
Mixing:  Dylan Cameron
Mastering: Jess Labrador

Recorded at Croom Records studio in Austin, Tx.

Enough (ft. Allanah Maarteen)

It's been said that we don't remember most of the dreams we have on any given night, which is perhaps why we impart so much weight and meaning on the ones we do remember. The symbols our subconscious projects onto the back of our eyelids could be prophetic, or they could be answers to long contemplated dilemmas, if only we could decipher their meaning, if only we could sift through the haze and absurdity and illogic. "I've got a dream of heaven," coos Allanah Maarteen on "Dreams," as Croom's instrumental establishes the dreamscape in airy electronics and anxious percussive tonal bursts, completing the phrase with "it looks a lot like this place," a statement that comes with the hint of a question about itself. What does it all mean? That the heaven glimpsed in dreams may look like here but it isn't this place and one gets the sense there are lots of other places that were similar enough too, but not quite there. When the chorus opens up like some celestial collaboration between The Cranberries and Yaz, the dream itself isn't any more clear, nor is heaven's actual location but one thing is: dreams don't need meaning or prophecy to matter, it's the impossible freedom they grant, the weightlessness, that makes them so memorable, more than any holdrum advice about everyday stress and troubles ever could.

Dreams (ft. Allanah Maarteen)

The Fires Within is a dark ambient cinematic song.
Croom recorded in his studio using a GR-1, Waldorf Blofeld, and tracked to his tascam 424.

The Fires Within

Austin electronic composer. Hybrid of film score grandiosity, post-punk moodiness, haunting vocals, synth abstractions and electro-pop hooks.

"Taking its cues from 80s darkwave or more modern proprietors like Ladytron" - Surviving the Golden Age

Contact:  contact@croommusic.com
Press + Booking Contact - Morgan Davis: morgan@ovrld.com

His music is available on iTunes and croommusic.com

Croom

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