Crank Stallion

Hailing from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Crank Stallion is a boundary-pushing trio that thrives in the spaces between genres. Seamlessly blending the chaotic brilliance of avant-garde rock with the groove-laden textures of Jazz, Cuban, funk, Hip Hop, and Psychedelia, the band conjures sonic landscapes that defy time and expectation. Their sound, both fiercely modern and eerily timeless, is as if Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits, Marc Ribot, Talking Heads, and a jazz organ trio collided with Missy Elliot.

The band’s lineup—Jon Dowse, a commanding keyboard and Moog player, Wes Lambe, an 8-string hybrid guitar-bassist who holds down basslines while painting shimmering leads, and Ben Maschal a drummer whose solid break-beat-steady rhythms drive the chaos—creates a dynamic soundscape that "sounds entirely from another time without being able to ascertain if that time is the past or the future."