Robin Crutchfield is an American artist. He is best known as one of the founding musicians of the former New York No Wave scene.

Biography

Crutchfield moved to New York in the mid 1970s. He was an original member of the seminal No Wave band DNA with Arto Lindsay and Ikue Mori. He played keyboards in the first version of the band until leaving to form his own group in 1979. His band, Dark Day, explored wide varieties of keyboard and synthesizer textures and went through several lineup changes. Towards the end of the band's existence, Crutchfield explored a style somewhat reminiscent of European medieval and baroque music.

Crutchfield resumed Dark Day as a solo act in the late 1990s, returning to a familiar electronic sound but with a noticeable natural progression. The albums that followed saw his music turn away from the cold synthesizer textures he'd become known for.

In early 2002, after a twenty year hiatus, Crutchfield resumed both painting and writing. His work centered around fairy tales and his music changed to reflect this. By the summer of 2002, Crutchfield had exhibited both his new images and words at a gallery show and furthered his explorations musically.

In 2008, Marc Masters, a contributing writer for The Wire magazine, published his book, entitled No Wave. The book, which as its name implies, focuses solely on the No Wave scene, features many sections on both DNA and Dark Day, as well as performance and promotional photographs of Crutchfield from that time period.

In late 2009 Robin worked with noted independent label Important Records to release his fourth CD of harp/drone folk music entitled The Hidden Folk, which has received rave reviews from both critics and fellow contemporaries such as Kurt Weisman, and Thurston Moore.

Discography

With DNA:

1. "You & You" b/w "Little Ants", 1978 - Lust/Unlust Music
2. No New York: various artists (Four DNA tracks), 1978 - Antilles
3. DNA On DNA, 2004 - No More Records

As Dark Day:

1. "Hands In The Dark" b/w "Invisible Man", 1979 - Lust/Unlust Music
2. Exterminating Angel, 1980 - Lust/Unlust Music
3. "Trapped" b/w "The Exterminations 1-6", 1981 - Lust/Unlust Music
4. Window, 1982 - Plexus USA
5. Darkest Before Dawn, 1989 - Nigh Eve Productions
6. Dark Day Collected: 1978-1982, 1998 - Daft Records
7. Strange Clockwork, 1999 - Self-released
8. Loon, 2000 - Self-released
9. Robin Crutchfield reading from The White Things, 2001 - Self-released
10. The Happy Little Oysters, 2001 - Self-released
11. Fifty: A Half-Life, 2002 - Self-released
12. Dark Day: Strange Clockwork, 2003 - Nigh Eve Recordings
13. Strange Remains, 2005 - Self-released

As Robin Crutchfield:

1. SongsForFaerieFolk, 2006 - Self-released
2. ToadstoolSoup, 2006 - Nigh Eve Recordings
3. For Our Friends In The Enchanted Otherworld, 2007 - Hand/Eye
4. The Hidden Folk, 2009 - Important Records

External links

1. The Official Robin Crutchfield Website
2. The Official Dark Day Website
3. Robin Crutchfield's MySpace
4. DNA Wiki Page
5. No Wave: The Book

References