CREDIT: CHARLOTTE CROW
Charlotte Crow's homemade tape has this reviewer swooning over her lo-fi bedroom pop and twangy guitar.

One of the more interesting artists I’ve come across as of recently is Charlotte Crow – not related to Sheryl Crow but we can pretend – a solo artist from the boonies whom I met this past winter.

Not being able to come into the city much, her seclusion out in the county has clearly sparked a great creative nerve that makes her quite prolific for an 18-year-old. She gave me a tape called Surrealist Bedroom along with a zine to accompany it last time we crossed paths, and she occasionally sends me other demos once in a while through Soundcloud.

The tape itself is made up from some sort of old cassettes that have been reused and dubbed with pure artistic glee.

Being from a small town myself, I completely understand the idea of being secluded and having the ability to literally write music all day in the comfort of relative silence. In a way, her stuff kind of reminds me of my own solo work when I was living back at home. It was great to be able to go out to the garage at any point in the night and just make music all day.

Everything from ambient to punk to country, it was all just a part of my own music development. Crow’s work, however, sways wildly in the winds of lo-fi bedroom pop with twangy ‘60s guitar playing alongside spacey synths and layered underneath soft vocals.

Each song keeps these same elements but feels different and unique to one another, much like a scrapbook. It’s a great thing to sleep to, and that’s not a bad thing. New music with unexpected twists and intricacies often feels like a dream world, and Surrealist Bedroom nails that definition with precision and coolness.

With solo artistry, it is always obvious that it is sincere work that you either nail completely or miss entirely. What I mean by this is that most musicians are so passionate about what they do that expressing themselves without outside influence becomes one of the most difficult things to accomplish.

It’s much like writing in print or doing a speech. Lots of people can have good ideas, but communicating through words is difficult as your ideas can quite often get lost in a fog of babble and redundancy.

Not being the best writer myself, that statement is almost ironic but I have found this correlation over the years to be an important facet of my own solo work. Because of my understanding of this passion and going through a phase of not being able to conduct my ideas properly, I feel a strong intuitive tug when I listen to Crow’s work.

It is conclusive of what she wants to do, but it is not the end of what she wants to do because as most solo artists go, they never stop. True and dedicated artists will or should paint through their mediums until the day they croak or until they are physically unable to. And I believe through my own conclusions that Crow will certainly be one of those people.

You can get lost in the dream at charlottecrow.bandcamp.com, and also check out her other social media accounts through that page as well.