False Harmonics #10: CS + Kreme & Contour

False Harmonics is a musical series meant to explore alternative approaches to composition, improvisation and performance.

For the landmark tenth iteration of False Harmonics, Pioneer Works is excited to partner with NYC label Palto Flats to present the “slow hallucinatory experimental music” of CS + Kreme (Melbourne, Australia) for their first NYC performance alongside Contour, a genre bending solo project by Khari Lucas (South Carolina, US).

About the artists:

CS + Kreme are Conrad Standish and Sam Karmel.

Transcending style and space, CS + Kreme don’t follow a philosophy with making music, what they do is more fluid. Drawn like moths to the liminal state, they write slow and meditative “horizontal-music” which takes in heavy dub processing, sweeping post-punk and chamber music soundscapes, anchored around Standish’s leftfield bass guitar. In Karmel’s words, “Inherently, there are influences that come through without us even realizing. It’s kind of that cliche where people put their two cents forward for what our influences are, but I don’t think we’ve set out to be like anyone or anything.”

Over the past few years, CS + Kreme have released a string of disparate records on DIY labels which share their ethos: Total Stasis, Wichelroede and the Trilogy Tapes. The latter collaborations with Will Bankhead have been the most prolific, his label becoming an unofficial home away from home for the duo. Issuing EPs Cold Shoulder and howwouldyoufeelwithoutthatthought, as well as the full length album, Snoopy to critical acclaim in 2020, which is being hailed as their most comprehensive body of work to date.

Contour is the solo project of future Pioneer Works music resident, Khari Lucas, a songwriter/composer/producer with an artistic voice that reaches into several disciplines, some of these being radio, film, and journalism. His current musical output exists somewhere between jazz, soul, and psych rock, but he considers himself a student of all areas of music, and intends to cover as much sonic and thematic ground as possible over his artistic life. His work explores such themes as self-exploration, self determination, love and its iterations, isolation, and black cultural context.