MA – Across The City & Into Your Room (2007)

“MA (pronounced mah) is Sydney-based duo Drew Crawford and Victoria White, who have crafted a highly textured, lush album drawing on Crawford’s work on scores for major Australian theatre companies. His classical training shines through to create a subtle, delicate and original listen, complemented by sublime vocals from White, both heartfelt and raucous.”  
Time Out Sydney (5 out of 6 stars)

“A chilled out debut from this Australian duo, fusing composer Drew Crawford’s experimental pop sounds with the delectable voice of Victoria White… Orchestral moments are beautifully arranged on an album dripping with relaxed melody.”
SMH – Metro Section (4 out of 5 stars)

“MA is vocalist Victoria White and composer / programmer / editor / arranger Drew Crawford. Weaving together a range of string, drum, sax and guitar samples with Victoria’s pure vocals, the album takes you on a journey through playful pop, whimsical narrative, internal reflection and the melancholy. When we first listened to the tracks, we couldn’t help but be reminded of Beth Gibbons’ sweet-yet-serious vocals on top of the sampled backing in Portishead’s classic album: Dummy. White’s vocals have that beautiful quality of a real mix of purity and power, and she is well matched with the atmospheric, textured, electro-acoustic arrangements of Crawford. We loved the down-tempo honesty of this album; this is dimly-lit room, martini-in-hand sounds at their best. Sink back into your seat and enjoy.”
Smarthouse Magazine (4.5 out of 5 stars)

 

Duo Vertigo (2006)

“Stylish precision and poised clarity characterise this enterprising disc of new percussion music by the brilliantly versatile Duo Vertigo (Claire Edwardes and Niels Meliefste). […] Quadrivium 1 by Sydney composer Drew Crawford is most effective for its overall shape, tracing an arc from high tapping wood (marimba) down and back to receding metallic haze.”
CD review by Peter McCallum, Sydney Morning Herald, December 2-3, 2006 Read more…

 

In the Dark (2005)

“What a treat. This is a witty piece in which dance combines playfully with words, video and sound to comment on slivers of life and art. It is that rarity which knows when to stop, and how to bring lightness to a serious subject and let it run just long enough. […] It is so encouraging to see the talents of mature artists well used – a credit to director Wendy Houston – in a production involving top people such as Drew Crawford for sound and Neil Simpson for lighting.”
In the Dark – SMH, February 5, 2005 Read More…

 

Flash Blak (2004)

“Between these intersecting narrative lines are woven video images of the passing landscape as the photographers travel north, Drew Crawford’s accompanying romantic minimalism evoking the pulse of the journey with elegaic empathy.” 
RealTime issue #62 Aug-Sept 2004 Read more…

 

Eugene & Roie (2004)

“…With a motley crew of 10 singers and 25 instrumentalists, including seven trombones, they presented a concert version of the first act of Eugene & Roie, a three-act full-scale opera of gigantic proportions by Drew Crawford and Anatoly Frusin. Crawford’s music is an effective, sometimes beguiling blending of disparate sources. American gospel music and Sheraton lounge-lizard crooning sit shakily alongside expressive post-Modernist declamations and harrowing orchestral outbursts, redolent of the musical palettes of John Adams and Jake Heggie… Amongst many impressive musical moments, marshalled with such genial authority by Roland Peelman, were the luscious vignettes of Adele Johnston, the seductive Roie-cameo of Eilene Hannan, the befuddled detachment of John Antoniou as Goossens as well as Marshall McGuire’s lapidary harp-playing mirroring the innocent Sidonie, the elder Goossens daughter.”
GOOSSENS SAGA, Disgrace, Act One of Eugene & Roie, review by Vincent Plush, The Australian, 19 January, 2004

 

Lounge Music (2002)

“Lounge Music, a sampler of music for dance, theatre and cabaret by composer Drew Crawford and his colleagues and mentors, was an intentionally relaxed affair. The music, presented in a manner free of fusty concert hall convention, was by turns atmospheric, moody and in-your-face. Crawford’s various theatre works, generally subtitled “Beautiful music”, often used relatively simple building blocks and undemonstrative improvisation to create background music which, in these brief interludes, rewarded closer listening. Two of the three set pieces, Quadrivium One and Confiteor Deo, revealed Crawford’s classical roots, the former using layered marimba riffs to create harmonics which hung in the air, taking over from original percussive sounds, and the latter weaving a solemn dance for the six voices of the Song Company in a work recalling Ross Edwards’s Dance Mantras, performed earlier in the program. The third set piece was from the other end of Crawford’s stylistic spectrum: a show-stopping setting of My Mistress’ Eyes for Bell Shakespeare’s production of The Taming of the Shrew, performed in boy-band-meets-Meatloaf style by Tim Richards, Stephen Pease and Matt Passmore. With their dry ice and slick moves came an indication they might upstage the show’s centrepiece, Michelle Morgan. However, she was more than a match for three men. Performing her own compositions and works written in collaboration with Crawford, she used her versatile voice, sassy lyrics and excellent backing band to steal the show. Sea of Glass was, for me, the most successful and substantial work on the program, musically and dramatically, with Morgan by turns strong and wistful, and a bracket of songs from Crawford’s musical Why Are Our Porn Stars Killing Themselves? left the audience wanting more.”
Harriet Cunningham, Sydney Morning Herald, October 1 2002

 

Stretching It Wider (2001)

“To a funky score by Drew Crawford, personae conjoin in the body of the dancer who’s eventually pulled through the glory hole by the invisible Walsh, this time his anonymous partner… In his program note, Brian Carbee says “these pieces are just as much about working with Dean and Drew. They are also about having an opportunity to create, about making a living, such as it is, and about love.” This work was put together on a shoestring and at lightning speed. The intimacy between the dancers is infectious. While you’re watching, you’re already thinking about telling your friends.”
RealTime issue #42 April-May 2001 Read more…

 

New Music: Now! – Young Composers, Their Work and Ideas (1998)

“…Drew Crawford floats somewhere between two worlds, writing for popular cabaret shows and also more so-called serious concert works. The influence of popular culture is all-pervasive in Crawford’s work, but not always in an overt sense. For example, his new string quartet, composed in memory of Jeff Buckley, takes as much from Sculthorpe’s Mangrove in its textural sympathies as it does from the pop music world. As something of an Australian Kurt Weill … Crawford is somewhat caught between the world of pop (as in his music theatre work Why Are Our Porn-Stars Killing Themselves?) and concert music. Like Weill, we seem to find him difficult to pigeon-hole, which seems to underline a lack of flexibility in the new music world, rather than any particular fault by Crawford himself, who is an important talent and ought to be recognised as such.”
New Music: Now! – Young Composers, Their Work and Ideas Read more…