Cross Record, is the project Emily Cross, recently she announced her new album Crush Me, out March 21st via Ba Da Bing Records (Katie Von Schleicher). Ahead of it’s arrival, she has shared the lead single/video, “Charred Grass.” The video visualizes this; as she walks delicately through the woods, impediments continually break her stride. The track is about “moments that stick with me, and help me feel real— essentially, times in which time itself ceases to exist.” Cross elaborates: “I drive past a lot of fields, and one morning I saw a big fire. The next day there was a baby calf laying on the bit of charred grass close to its mom, who was making eye contact with me as I drove by. Sometimes the car scares the cows but this one seemed to convey only peace and calm.”

Cross began writing Crush Me fresh off a tour with Loma, her band with Jonathan Meiburg (Shearwater) and Dan Duszynski. She was five years into serving clients as a death doula, holding hundreds of Living Funerals, a process during which Cross guides participants through the rituals of their own deaths. After moving from Austin, TX to Dorset, UK, she established the Steady Waves Center for Contemplation, where she hosted Living Funerals, met clients, scheduled mindful tea sessions, and showcased experimental music nights. All the while, she was scribbling down song ideas.

After sending her demos to a major indie label and receiving real interest, Cross prepared a two-week recording session in Germany with a group of skilled musicians from around the world, unlike her usual, inexpensive recording processes. Comfort and traditional structure were eschewed – she left plenty of room in her demos for experimentation, collaboration, improvisation, and obliteration, then resurrection when necessary. Upon leaving Germany, the record was unfinished, and without a roadmap. As passages were recorded as isolated parts, Cross and musician Marcin Sulewski collaborated, facing a haphazard brick pile, waiting to be assembled. Work dipped in and out of view over many months. During that time, the aforementioned interested label went radio silent. Collaborators disappeared, continuing the themes of abandonment, surrender, and disarray that followed the project. Cross physically felt her entire body go numb.

In a twist of fate, the record was rescued by long-time friend and supporter Ben Goldberg at Ba Da Bing Records who was eager to help realize the project. Cross worked for months on the album, all the while nursing a pregnancy and continuing her full-time funeral work. The last minute participation of Seth Manchester of Machines with Magnets, who mixed and mastered, was an essential life-raft.

Cross Record
Crush Me
Track list
Ba Da Bing Records

1. I Can Lie
2. Rolling Backwards
3. Charred Grass
4. Right Thing By Me
5. Dorset Area Of Natural Beauty
6. Cutting A Cake
7. Led Through Life
8. God Fax
9. Pearl Through The Funnel
10. Designed In Hell
11. Crush Me
12. Twisted Up Fence

Pre-order Crush Me by Cross Record HERE