Crank Wave
35 vinyl records found
Crank Wave emerged from Britain and Ireland in the late 2010s as a collision of post-punk, post-rock, and spoken word. The scene gravitated around producer Dan Carey's Speedy Wunderground label and The Windmill venue in Brixton, producing bands that talk-sing urgent, angular music with sharp rhythmic precision.
About the Crank Wave genre
The term 'Crank Wave' arrived in 2019 via NME and The Quietus to describe a wave of post-punk revival bands that felt distinctly contemporary. NPR's Matthew Perpetua later framed them as 'Post-Brexit New Wave,' capturing both the geography and the restless energy of groups emerging in early 2020s Britain and Ireland. The music sits somewhere between post-punk's nervous architecture and post-rock's instrumental complexity, with vocalists who treat singing as one texture among many.
Key artists in the scene include Black Midi, Squid, Black Country New Road, Dry Cleaning, Shame, Sleaford Mods, Fontaines D.C., The Murder Capital, Idles, and Yard Act. Producer Dan Carey and his Speedy Wunderground imprint became central to documenting the sound, while The Windmill's all-ages policy nurtured raw, unpolished takes on post-punk fundamentals. The broader post-punk resurgence also pulled in North American and European contemporaries like Parquet Courts, Protomartyr, Geese, Preoccupations, Iceage, Cola, and Viagra Boys, all bringing regional inflections to the shared template of angular guitars, nervous rhythms, and urgent vocal delivery.
