WRENS: Half of What You See

"At a time when violently distorted, nearly atonal rage rap can scratch the mainstream while avant-garde jazz artists fuse traditional band arrangements with the unearthly sound design of club music's vanguard, it's no small feat that WRENS' " Charlie Parker" manages to be one of the year's strangest singles in either genre. As drummer Jason Nazary sets the Brooklyn band's wounded gait slightly ahead of plucky synths and a flute in hysterics,"

"frontman and trumpeter Ryan Easter starts kicking a verse that recontextualizes boilerplate trap and drill lines into the jazz world. He's pointing Smith & Wessons at the opps; whipping chickens on the stove like they're the roadkill the track's titular saxophonist ate on the day he earned his famous nickname. There are layers to the playfulness. Ikue Mori-esque data chirps, drunken basslines, and mashed drumfills tussle in a cartoon dust cloud as Easter manipulates his identity in the foreground."

"WRENS' 2023 debut double album, alligator shoes [on flatbush], chronicled two formative sessions that captured their sound before and after the addition of cellist Lester St. Louis. While this rawer early material demonstrated the band's shared taste for musically dense yet texturally weightless improvisation, the record sometimes felt maximalist for eccentricity's sake, as if each member was anxious to one-up the other's IDM-adjacent synth timbre."

WRENS' single Charlie Parker fuses violently distorted, nearly atonal rage-rap energy with avant-garde jazz and club-oriented sound design. Drummer Jason Nazary drives a wounded gait while plucky synths and a hysterical flute weave around Ryan Easter's verse that repurposes trap and drill imagery into jazz contexts. The track layers Ikue Mori-esque data chirps, drunken basslines, and mashed drumfills, and Easter performs shifting personas—street mafioso, jazz virtuoso, and sensitive young man—revealing commonalities between roles. The band's technical skill and taste maintain sincerity amid playful excess. The sophomore album Half of What You See preserves quirkiness while showing more intentionality and patience than the debut.

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