Crooked Fingers

Eric Bachmann, the longtime singer and guitarist who fronted North Carolina indie rock stalwarts Archers of Loaf, created Crooked Fingers as his solo outlet. A former saxophone major at Appalachian State University, he helped launch the Archers in Chapel Hill during the final months of 1991. The group quickly became a regional staple, and its skewed noise pop reached a wider college-radio audience in 1993 via the single “Web in Front,” paving the way for the well-received albums Icky Mettle in 1994 and All the Nation’s Airports in 1996. While still with the Archers, Bachmann joined producer Caleb Southern in 1995 for the instrumental side project Barry Black, whose self-titled debut appeared on Alias; the follow-up Tragic Animal Stories arrived in 1997.

Following the Archers’ breakup in 1998, Bachmann introduced Crooked Fingers with a self-titled album on the WARM label in early 2000. The original-material set Bring on the Snakes came next in 2001, and Merge Records issued his first release for the label the subsequent year—a covers EP titled Reservoir Songs that reinterpreted material by Neil Diamond and Queen. Red Devil Dawn, issued in 2003, expanded his melancholy indie-pop palette with added horns and strings. In 2005 he delivered the loosely conceptual Dignity and Shame, inspired by the lives of bullfighter Manolete and his partner, Spanish actress Lope Sino. Recording under his own surname, Bachmann moved to Saddle Creek in 2006 for the spare, acoustic-driven To the Races.

Returning to the Crooked Fingers name in 2008, he released Forfeit/Fortune on Red Pig/Constant Artists, Inc., making the album available solely through twenty hand-selected independent North American stores. Although Bachmann devoted part of 2011 to Archers of Loaf reunion performances, he still completed new Crooked Fingers material, resulting in that year’s Merge Records release Breaks in the Armor.