Album Review: Crawling On – Dive Star

Posted on October 22, 2025 by Casey Ruff

Crawling On – Dive Star
(self-released, 2025)

Seattle songsmith Crawling On (AKA Aun Backstrom) is here to remind us that dive bars remain resolute, the past is a backseat driver, and a season can hold a lifetime throughout his excellent and expansive new record Dive Star.

The words Crawling On Dive Star rendered as a neon sign in green, purple, and orange on a black background.

We last heard from Crawling On with his 2018 14 Million Dollar Loan EP, and that brakeless joyride of a record covered a lotta ground in little time; an agile transit through shit-kicking cowpunk, folk-ist rebukes, and even some hat tipping towards the vocal stylings of one William Bruce Rose, Jr. It was a confident and economical proof of concept of seeds well planted that bore the big fruit that Dive Star brings to market.

Dive Star opens with the tasteful invocation “Theme For A July Wedding,” a sentimental guitar arpeggiation that acts as a grounding exercise, seemingly holding the rest of the album within itself. “Ready For Love Again” follows smartly behind, an exhibition of Americana balladeering that marches onward throughout the “Ain’t No Angels” and “Do It in a Day” that follow. I like to think these initial chapters sound like The Band helmed by David Allen Coe (just try and imagine THAT version of The Last Waltz), and illustrates what is refreshing about Backstrom: his casual sincerity, deft arrangements, instrumental colorings, and a throat that distinguishes Backstrom from the crowding carbon copies throughout the dreck and din that’s become Instagram-icana.

The focus explicit within this opening quadrilogy of songs is countered by some welcome changes in topography. There’s a countrified shuffle in “The Ballad of Johnie Kirton,” an upbeat eulogizing of the late, great tight end for the University of Washington’s football program; a trek through the beast’s belly in “Devil’s Doorway,” and onward into the resolute “Sad Green Eyes” (both of them romantic remonstrations of the otherwise angelic). The latter’s line of “Darling, I’m a skimming stone, passing as you sink below” is a jewel of lyrical imagery in this crown of an album. 

We wash up onto the doorsteps of a couple North Seattle dive bars in “Up at Al’s,” and Aun’s superlative yarning shines through neon-strong here: blue-collar budgets and bar tabs ascendent, convivial crescendoes, upright piano à la saloon, and are those Kirton stats flitting amidst the primate purr? The joy beaming from this song is potent, contagious, and how apropos that the floor rushes to meet us with the sobering whiplash of “Solitary Hearts” on deck. We conclude the album with the reflective “The Long Haul (Last Call)”, itself a goodbye brimming with rough-hewn promises and a bittersweet summation that more than earns its place as this record’s capstone. 

This final track brings into focus how Dive Star isn’t a concept album per se, but it has been a journey of distinctly complimentary narrative and musical themes. When a lot of albums can’t shake the shape of their respective petri dishes, this LP has a living, breathing, upright and walking and talking and then running-full-speed-but-oh-shit-it-just-biffed-it-but-oh-wait-it’s-okay-it-got-up-again corporeal vitality, one that we’d all be the better to befriend. In Dive Star, Backstrom’s Crawling On trustily leads us outbound then homeward across ranges of songship that are just as articulate in their immediacies as they are in their reflections. 

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Ball of Wax 71 Songs: Marina Rose – “red-eyed vireo”

Posted on July 1, 2025 by Levi Fuller

What is it with loopers and birds? Completely independently of Gary Prince’s improvisation with birds, the wonderful multi-instrumentalist Marina Rose offers up this beautiful closing meditation for violin/fiddle, named after a “warbler-like” bird found in Northern Georgia, where the piece was recorded. I feel the need to also note that this track has the exact same pop-song running time as Gary’s offering, and inspires in me a similar feeling of grudging respect at its succinct compactness, combined with a deep longing for it to go on (and on, and on, and on, and on . . .).

Alas, this is all we get from Marina Rose for the moment, at least when it comes to looping fiddle. It turns out, however, that she’s also a damn fine singer-songwriter, with a damn fine new EP out right now on Strange Moon Records. If you’re ready for a break from loops, I’d strongly recommend that as your next listen.

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Ball of Wax 71 Songs: Colin Pulkrabek – “Trichiliocosm”

Posted on June 30, 2025 by Levi Fuller

The timing wasn’t intentional on my part, but I’m so glad I ended up writing this track review after seeing Colin Pulkrabek‘s set at our Ball of Wax 71 celebration last week. (By the way, here is your reminder that Ball of Wax 71 is out and available for sale and you should probably buy it right now.) Before witnessing his performance, I would not have fully appreciated his live compositional technique, which incorporates not only layers of throaty, full-bodied trombone and delightful self-harmonizing melodies, but some highly impressive beatboxing. I had wondered before where the beat in this track came from, but it did not occur me that all of these sounds were, indeed, coming from his bo-ody (but, you know, actually good).

“Trichiliocosm” is, as with so many of the short pieces in this collection, just a tiny taste of what this artist can do with a looper, his instrument, and his beautiful musical brain. At the show he mentioned he hadn’t done a set like this in a decade, and I sincerely hope he gives us another chance to experience this work in person again sooner than that. If we ask really nice, maybe he’ll at least release some more recordings along these lines.

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Ball of Wax 71 Songs: Amy Denio – “Dunga-Dee”

Posted on June 27, 2025 by Levi Fuller

As if I’m not lucky enough to be walking the earth at the same time as a multi-faceted, multi-instrumental genius like Amy Denio, never mind to be living in the same city and traveling in the same circles of musical weirdos, it absolutely blows my tiny mind that I, like, know her, and that she’s willing to be part of this odd little endeavor I started in my basement 20 years (and two days) ago. I am so glad Kate and Leanna invited her to join our loopy cohort for Ball of Wax 71.

From among the many musical tools at her disposal, Amy chose a simple drum and her own voice to create “Dunga-Dee,” the second track on this collection to feature spontaneously invented language as part of its spontaneously invented musical landscape. But the mood could not be more different from the swirling intensity of Crystal Beth’s “Answer the Damn Phone.” The simple rhythm and beautiful harmonies bring to mind a leisurely swing in a hammock, the jazz-infused melodies she layers over top just adding more sun to the scene. The moment where it all drops out and she swings from a breezy falsetto down to gravelly throat-singing and all the way back to the top before bringing it back home for another few swings is just one more reminder of how lucky we are to be graced by her brilliance.

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Ball of Wax 71 Songs: “Improvisation for Electric Guitar and Birds, Washington, DC, 4/21/25”

Posted on June 26, 2025 by Levi Fuller

Ball of Wax 71 is out now! Thanks to everyone who made the release show last night at Vermillion such a delight. You can hear (and BUY) the whole thing right here, put we’ll keep posting individual tracks until we’re done.

Co-curator Kate Olson brought her old friend Gary Prince into the Ball of Wax 71 fold all the way from the other Washington, doubling the number of guitarists involved. I don’t know if there were actual birds involved in the creation of this piece, but I feel like I can hear them nevertheless – or perhaps as I listen I feel like I am a bird, soaring impossibly high, floating on a column of air.

Despite running just over three minutes, there is so much space in this piece, layers of attackless guitar resonating and interweaving just so, laying out a loose boundary for the melodic, picked lines that come in later. Everything comes in its own time, never rushed or hurried; thoughtful but not overthought, a delicate balance. As that low-end riff comes in toward the end – warm yet sinister, almost Lynchian – I want to hear more, to know where it’s going (I’m a sucker for low end), but it turns out this is Gary gently laying us back down on the ground with the strike of a string and the click of a footswitch. Fortunately, I can (and have, and will again) just hit play whenever I want to take flight again.

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Ball of Wax 71 Songs: KO SOLO – “selfexploration”

Posted on June 24, 2025 by Levi Fuller

KO SOLO – aka Kate Olson, one of the curators of this fine collection of sounds, has contributed the smoldering, meditative “selfexploration” to the pot, and it’s a perfect encapsulation of what made me want to collaborate with her as a performer, and as co-curator of this compilation (along with the brilliant Leanna Keith; see track 4). It starts with a gorgeous, fluttering melodic run, drenched in reverb, that folds back in on itself and becomes the bed for more pointed musings, bursting into our awareness like stars flickering into place in the night sky. Then the low end comes in, that gorgeous baritone (or, bass? I really should be able to tell the difference) sax putting down roots to hold it all in place.

The piece continues to unfold over the next few minutes, Kate employing different horns and effects to create her own intergalactic orchestra of one. You want it to go on forever, or at least for another five or ten or twenty minutes, but she elegantly lands the plane just before the five-minute limit she and Leanna (cruelly or tastefully, depending on your point of view) imposed on us all for our submissions, leaving you with a feeling of calm and closure, despite the desire for infinitude.

If, like me, you do want more of this, and to see how it happens in the moment, in person, then you absolutely must join us tomorrow night at Vermillion for our Ball of Wax 71 celebration. See you there!

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Ball of Wax 71 Songs: N8b – “Rainy Day”

Posted on June 24, 2025 by Levi Fuller

One enjoyable surprise about being part of a collection of music by live looping improvisers is the myriad different ways we all go about it: the diversity of tools, approaches, and outcomes that inform our impromptu, circular musical practice. N8b isn’t the only vocalist in this collection, but he has absolutely contributed the piece that’s most like a pop song. Packed into a tight three minute run time he’s got lyrics, a bit of rapping, even a change in key and what I would go so far as to call a chorus if it happened more than once. (Fuck it, I’m calling it a chorus anyway.)

At the same time, it’s built on a foundation of repeating layers of rhythms and sounds, the same building blocks we all use. The joy of spontaneous creation, of making up music along with the you of a few seconds ago, seeps through every rain-soaked moment. 

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Ball of Wax 71 Songs: Passenger Pigeon – “Attack of the Twig Blights”

Posted on June 23, 2025 by Kate Olson

First of all, I invite you to google “twig blights” and feast your eyes upon artist renderings of these creepy photosynthesizers. Allegedly created from a stake run through the heart of a vampire, these D&D monsters are bloodthirsty shrubs who can uproot themselves and use their branches as claws to ensnare unsuspecting victims. Levi (aka Passenger Pigeon)’s improvisation keenly encapsulates the joyful scratchiness and viciousness of these branch-beasts with a driving, energetic, distorted loop from his baritone electric guitar. We hear the overdriven fret sounds and harmonics layered into the looped and doubled bassline, and halfway through the track we are treated to a distorted sliding solo.

I like to imagine myself hidden safely in the underbrush, watching a pack of these things passing by me on their way to wreak havoc, accompanied by this soundtrack. If one of the aims of improvised live looping is to transport the listener to a different world, and show them that world in detail . . . this track accomplishes that aim immediately.

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Ball of Wax 71 Songs: Crystal Beth – “Answer the Damn Phone”

Posted on June 23, 2025 by Levi Fuller

Beth Fleenor – aka Crystal Beth – has long been one of my favorite performers to witness creating spontaneous musical magic with the assistance of looping pedals. Whether conjuring worlds with her clarinets or vocally opening a door to another dimension, it seems like she’s able to transport audiences to other realms – or at least transmit messages from those realms – at the drop of a hat. “Answer the Damn Phone,” created with just her voice and two loopers, is a perfectly pithy example of Beth’s improvisatory genius at work. Even better, it tells you her secret right up front. As she writes in the BoW 71 liner notes, “when something comes rushing through” – call it inspiration, the muse, a message, or a gift – you have to Answer the Damn Phone. I’m so glad she did, and that she’s shared her end of that call with us. 

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Ball of Wax 71 Songs: Leanna Keith – “something in the wind”

Posted on June 21, 2025 by Casey Ruff

Words have been failing a lot lately, so happening upon Leanna Keith’s “something in the wind” was all the more welcome. A sinister bank of undulating static eddies and swarms before us, and . . . why can I taste sand? Needling affronts to comfort preside over a desert emerging, one of hot, snapping synapses, insectal skirmishes, and the swishing of digital reeds. A beautiful rendering of a most loathsome circumstance!

A single flute advances cautiously from the background, a scout distinguished before others, and furtive companions file behind one by one. What constellates is a traveling band, helixing voices mounting into layers before us, and a plaintive communing commences. There’s fear here. Loss. There’s a mourning, but one done in the comfort of burdens borne amongst the alike ingreived. Voicings pad down into a warm altar,
and slowly they raise a descant soloist bringing to fore comfort, reflection, and rally. All abandon the scene, quick as a turning page.

Keith has crafted a soundscape of confident and patient dimensionality, one rendered beyond the mere translexical stacking of tones. There’s a deep conversation here, there’s inquiry, and as much digital character as there is human. I enjoyed how the brushstroke breaths of Keith’s playing were featured, laying their footprints plain throughout. Perhaps it’s the hyperphantasia talking, but there were moments in this piece that were clearer than cinema.

Keith co-curated this Ball of Wax collection alongside multi-instrumentalist Kate Olson, and I thought this appropriate considering that both are deft in the construction of sonic dioramas, these containers for the wordless conversation. Keith’s “something in the wind” is well-met by Olson’s “selfexploration,” which to me felt like a jaw-clenched bout of Blade Runner lounge reflection. I’ll put in my request now: it’d be great to have these two co-writing, a My Dinner With Andre scenario of soundsmiths in dialogue, for just imagine the far-flung worlds and unsung stories they could share with us!

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