CS + Kreme – The Butterfly Drinks The Tears of The Tortoise

CS + Kreme, the Australian duo of Conrad Standish and Sam Karmel, creates mesmerizing experimental electronic work they’ve dubbed “horizontal music,” blending heavy dub, post-punk, and chamber influences. Their partnership, sparked at a Melbourne day-party, found a home with DIY labels like Total Stasis and The Trilogy Tapes. In 2020, their Snoopy arrived just in time for the pandemic, and word spread through text chains and commiseration sessions. Someone called the album “quietly seductive,” which is apt, and by the end of that year Resident Advisor and Boomkat had included the record on their best of lists. A gorgeous, essential record. Their latest, The Butterfly Drinks The Tears of The Tortoise, centers on melodies crafted by Standish on a borrowed nylon-string guitar, infusing a sort of twisted folk sensibility into the duo’s sound. Opener “Corey” is perhaps their most “pop” leaning track to date with a distantly hummable melody that’ll surely remain trapped somewhere in our psyches for years to come.

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