The namesake of Denton, Texas-based singer/songwriter Madeline Crisman Dowd, Crisman specializes in intimate, slowcore-tinged bedroom pop filled with spacious melodies and hushed emotional discord. Emerging in 2018, the group issued its eponymous debut album on Top Shelf Records in 2020. After relocating from her hometown of Alpharetta, Georgia to Denton, Texas in 2011, Dowd met Dallas musician Boone Patrello (aka Dead Sullivan) and immersed herself in the local D.I.Y. scene. The duo's innate chemistry led to the release of a demo cassette (Crisman Tape) in 2018; it caught the attention of Top Shelf Records, which signed the group the following year. The resulting Crisman, a hazy amalgam of lo-fi dream pop and knotty, melodic slowcore, was issued in 2020. ~ James Christopher Monger