It’s hard to place a firm finger on Standing on the Corner’s latest album, a 60 minute, two-track release entitled Red Burns, but the record – which opens with warm crackling, synth-y harp strums, and omnipotent narration treated with the kind of vocal distortion that sounds as if your cassette’s brown tapes have melted – is wildly innovative, and strangely mesmerizing. The project, headed by Gio Escobar and Jasper Marsalis, a Crown Heights based duo armed with a jazz background and an interest in rap and electronica, is a response to recent political and nationwide events, chronicling them with the distinctive viewpoint of those facing direct oppression, but expressing them through a medium that is widely freeform and experimental. (Olivia Sisinni)
