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The First Humans

The First Humans is the esoteric dream pop enterprise of Edmonton-based musician, Jesse Crowley. A lifelong songwriter and musician, Crowley has become a fixture of the Edmonton arts scene, most notably writing and performing thrilling electric guitar lines for Grindstone Theatre’s original Fringe show ThunderCATS! and Jason Kenney’s Hot Boy Summer, the hit political satire musical which toured through Alberta, Canada in 2021 and 2022 (recently nominated for eight Sterling Awards). Jesse has been writing, recording, and performing across Canada for many years and has recently focused his efforts towards a sequence of single releases through 2023 under the moniker The First Humans.

The First Humans and The Winnowing Drill

by Jesse Crowley aka The First Humans

Jesse Crowley aka The First Humans


Many years can go by, and one would have just a faint idea at best of what was going on in the midst of those rote routines, cycles, ellipses that engulf the conscious mind on a daily basis. The constant whirring of the gears, the hum of the system casting a tint across one’s attention span to prevent any particular deviation from the expected routine of the machine as it rolls along in its tread.

An observation of Tennessee Williams’ characters that seems inescapable to me is that of the unconscious voice that breaks through that cacophony of time rolling along. It’s the precarious tendency of the soul to drive the outward behavior against the will of the conscious mind, and it’s inside this space, the point of contact where the winnowing drill of the conscience irks the daily systems in one’s life to force itself forward – that is the locus of creativity to me. A slow moving, but insistent, generative focal point.

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