Plan9 Music

Crooks & Nannies is a collaboration between multi-instrumentalists Sam Huntington (she/her) and Max Rafter (they/them). The duo's signature blend of brash, confessional indie rock functions on extremes. Alternating between painfully tender and jarringly obtuse, the childhood friends fashion themes of growth, loss, and transformation into off-kilter pop songs that whirr with the unpredictability of a failing engine. In early 2020, just days after Huntington decided to start hormone therapy, her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. After his passing, she and Rafter retreated to the partially-finished, off-grid cabin that her father had been building prior to his diagnosis. It was the first time either of them had been back to their hometown in upstate NY since transitioning, and it resulted in a distinct contrast between vulnerable, melancholy hush and explosive, confused guitar throughout every fiber of their new record, Real Life.