Two White Cranes – City Streets/Haunting (2023)
Roxy Brennan, a singer-songwriter who operates under the moniker of Two White Cranes, belongs to that category of brave artists who dare to expose their music and lyrics to just a backing of either a single instrument or minimalistic arrangements that can expose any faults – in songwriting, lyrics, playing or vocals. All that is evident in her single ‘City Streets/Haunting’ where Brennan resorts just to her electric guitar (‘City Streets’) or a very minimalistic backing of a Casio and a bass and drums rhythm section (“Haunting’). What comes is some excellent songwriting (both songs), Brennan’s quite sweet voice, and lyrics that, in both cases., have something to say.
Talking about the songs, Brennan notes that ‘City Streets ‘ is about “the experience of being a fleshy human living in a city full of concrete and other hard surfaces… Iove concrete, but it can feel jarring to be such a small soft human body in such a large hard building”. On the other hand, ‘Haunting’ is about the house itself and imagining how the house might feel about being built.
The quality of these two songs that come from her latest EP Self Build might line in the fact that Brennan has been in and around the UK DIY music scene since she was 16 when she played her first gig with Francois (of Francois & the Atlas Mountains fame) in a cafe in Bristol. Between 2013 and 2016 she was in no less than nine bands, all overlapping, including Joanna Gruesome, Grubs, Towel, Trust Fund, The Nervy Betters, and King Of Cats (“very overwhelming” she reflects).
Buildings and construction seem to be often on the mind of Brennan as her solo project Two White Cranes started in 2012 when Roxy was working as a temp at a hospital in Oxford. “It’s named after two large construction cranes I used to walk underneath to get to work every morning,” she says. This single and the EP just might be the music that will bring Roxy Brennan and her Two Cranes Project the wider recognition she deserves.
Discover more about Two White Cranes on her Instagram and Spotify.
