Crimewave is the project of Jake Wilkinson. The artist spent 2024 touring Kim Gordon, George Clanton, and Machinedrum. Today he makes his debut for Fool’s Gold Records (Brockhampton, Danny Brown), with new single “Semaphore,” a track off his forthcoming album Scenes, out November 7th.

“Semaphore”, is a paranoid and robotic signal flare from the club. Its looping refrain, ‘fixated eyes, malignant smiles, another semaphore’, captures the sense of coded warnings and uneasy recognition when stepping into a volatile space. Musically, the track locks glitching, distorted guitars into rigid, strobing electronics, its industrial edge building a sense of dread before surging into urgent, body-moving release.

Despite this focus on club culture and electronic dance music, there’s not a synth to be heard on the record, just heavily manipulated guitars processed through the latest technologies. “I’m an electronic music producer first and foremost,” explains Crimewave. “But I’m just using guitars instead of synths.” The result is a record that is uniquely textured, confronting and uncompromising. “My aim is to explore the idea of turning the guitar, a traditional rock instrument, into something that can be used in dance music,” says Crimewave. Across the album, the shoegaze wall of sound approach is fractured into shards, buzzsaw guitar melodies are stretched out of shape, and power chords are head-locked into maelstroms of club-ready beats.

Says Crimewave “There are so many exciting live electronic acts coming out of the North West right now that I’m lucky enough to hang out with”, naming peers like Another Country $$$$, Mogan, BUFFEE and Silverwingkiller. “I find it crazy we are all creating electronic music but playing it live with real instruments.” However, despite Crimewave being part of a flourishing musical community, the most remarkable thing about his work, and this record, is that it doesn’t sound like anyone else at all right now.

pre-order Scenes by Crimewave HERE