Rocket Shop 4/23/2014: Hum Crum

Words by Valentina Frimi. Photo by Lily Chau.

Hum Crum, a local music group truly like no other, came to Rocketshop last Wednesday to promote their Kickstarter project. Sprung from the basement of their Burlington duplex which the trio refers to as ‘the cornhole,’ the small league of everyday-casual, explore unstructured creative freedom, escaping from normality.

Their tracks are brief, but each has their own disorderly life, full of all the drone, static, and squawk anyone would ever desire. The laid-back trio comes together from diverse backgrounds including computer science and studio art.

In their creative process, the three produce roughly 40-minute experimental jam sessions mostly using live instruments then carefully choose the less than two minute chunk of their sound to then become a stand-alone track. They say that the process of selection isn’t too nit-picky, and the section they chose is often a standout, and naturally has it’s own beginning, middle, and end.

The housemates thrive on the borderless and bizarre, which is clear when the trio talk about the thrill of searching YouTube’s dark corners for 20-year-old VHS footage with little relevancy and minimal views, The three claim these to be real gems in the slums of the internet. Clips of their findings are roughly edited together create a kind of ‘music video’ for their short audio tracks. For the videos, which they see as are a large part of the Hum Crum creations.

The group is looking to have a Kickstarter campaign for producing a vinyl and VHS package of Hum Crum creations.

Their music and videos can be found on www.humcrum.net