Crooked blasts open with the frenzied garage shuffle of ‘Holy Microwave’, which quickly sets the tone for the rest of the EP. With whacked-out sounds ricocheting around your brain from the very beginning, and vocals shifting from pixie to wildman in the same line, it’s a startling opener but a perfect introduction to the world of Gamjee. Next up is the fried psych of lead single and EP highlight ‘Monday in Bed’, full with bleeding guitars and pounding drums, and the enormity of the track is only furthered on the car-chase/horror movie soundtrack that is ’William H. Vanderbilt’s Vampire’.

Gamjee take a moment to breathe on the blissful ‘Welcome the Seeds’, a paisley-pop track which sees the band shifting gear with kazooglehornist (?) Lily Harding taking lead vocals, over a bed of woozy organs and rattling percussion. ’The Word’ brings things up a notch with its shonky guitars and bouncing grooves, until the band shoot the track into another dimension with sprawling solos and a krautrock beat. Finally we’re hit with the ferocious title track, packed with head-banging riffs and howled vocals, and suddenly, following an extended guitar freak-out, Crooked is done and dusted.

Sometimes propulsive and brutal, others ominously sweet, Crooked is a really clever debut from a band who are clearly heading towards impressive things. To get a better insight into the new EP, we had vocalist/guitarist Sam Harding talk us through each of Crooked’s tracks.

Holy Microwave

‘Holy Microwave’ came from walking around a museum and being fixated on the history of witches and witchcraft. It all seems a little hypocritical that religious conservatives would attack the evil of witches in God’s name, but this song sort of says God itself is Woman in a sense.

“Who can start a heartbeat? Ain’t the hand that comes from Heaven”

Monday In Bed

This song was the first single we released. It was written in sections that all eventually found their way into the same track. It’s centred around ‘need not greed’, and is a little protest for keeping out of a traditional nine to five lifestyle. It’s a little more melodic and complicated than the other ones, so it’s always interesting to see how it turns out at gigs!

William H. Vanderbilt’s Vampire

This is the second single we released. Much like ‘Holy Microwave’, this came from spending some time looking through history and finding a funny looking character that had too much money. It’s about a tyrant sending out his bat/vampire to spread evil and collect cash. This is one of the favourites to play live too.

Welcome The Seeds

‘Welcome The Seeds’ is the only track released so far that Lily sings the lead. I love it, it’s the favourite recording on this release for me. We spent a few hours in my bedroom messing around with whatever we could find; recorder, organ, hand drums and shakers. I’m not sure there was a moment that we would do a take again… it was all very improvised. This one’s about celebrating the fall of old values and welcoming a new generation of thinkers and do-ers.

“How many more violent seasons could you see? No more room for wrinkled thinking.”

The Word

‘The Word’ is about fear and terror being sensationalised in the media. I think the whole release sort of addresses human division and this track really contests border enforcement and that closed off way of approaching a global community. This was one of the first tracks we wrote. I think it shows that the music has become a little heavier as we have progressed with songwriting.

Crooked

Which leads us to ‘Crooked’. This was such a fun song to create because it essentially happened with everyone in the room, throwing ideas around. It’s the title track of the release, although I wouldn’t at all say that it wraps up or even addresses the themes of the other tracks. This is the first autobiographical song I’ve ever really attempted, so it looks more at crooked identity more than crooked society, and celebrates the positive side to the word.