Stereogum Band To Watch: Quinn Walker
We come across plenty of one-man (or woman) bands, but not all of them can sound like an entire fun house orchestra dishing out madcap pop and a lost loner psych home recordist channeling his demons, all in the space of one section of one song. Quinn Walker's somewhat reminiscent of Spencer Krug in his seeming need to have dozens of parts in his more ambitious tracks, but though he does do some Bowie here and there, he's more usually sipping at the weirdo pond of Tiny Tim and his outsider brethren. He's a serious jokester, able to channel beauty, guffaws, and then wheel into a tune like "Capital Punishment," where a one-man, warped sound round repeats "I will murder all those deserving to die" over a spinning analog background of multi-tracked voices and crackle. Or he goes disco. And he makes us think Magnetic Fields colliding with Panda Bear on a song like "Let Freedom Ring" ... before he starts shouting "fuck taxes."
The tunes are home recorded, the instrumentation an amalgam of guitars, keyboards, computers, cell phone beeps, bells, trumpet, etc. Quinn's been releasing his own work for a while now, but debuts with a double album -- Laughter's An Asshole and Lion Land -- on Voodoo Eros in the New Year. We're happy to offer a couple gems after the jump. "Plenty Of Water For Mud" goes into a sorta Wooden Wand/Grateful Dead sky-high prairie sky. He sings with a baby-talk on "Baby Neon," a lovely pastoral that oscillates like Glass with a little more of that Animal Collecting.
Quinn Walker - "Plenty Of Water For Mud" (MP3)
Quinn Walker - "Baby Neon" (MP3)
Both of those tracks are from the Laughter portion of the record; you can check out a couple Lion Land songs -- the comp 'n' synth plinking, typewriter-clicking anti-office lament "Cubicles" and the Ziggy Stardusted "I'd Donate Organs For You" -- at his MySpace. Or check out this gorgeous performance of "I Know How To Be Alone" at this past CMJ ... startling transition from spoken voice to harmonized tung song.
Love how he's goaded into mentioning the new record. He doesn't quite pull off the percussive transitions, but recently did some shows opening for CocoRosie in Europe, so perhaps he's solidified things a bit. No other tour news really -- for now there's a show by his lonesome 12/5 at Union Pool in Brooklyn. Also look for Quinn in his band Suckers.
Quinn Walker Casts Spell Over Voodoo-EROS
2007-01-29
Story by: Kenny Herzog
Brooklyn label Voodoo-EROS, which is run by Militia Shimkovitz and CoCoRosie’s Bianca Casady, has a new signee. Quinn Walker, who has self-released records in the double digits, is a tough one to categorize, but in his own words, his music is best summed up as "experimental pop." In an interview with CMJ, he adds that, "I try to include elements of every genre in what I do 'cause there's always at least one or two incredible sounds birthed by every musical category, so everything I hear and do and see plays a role as an influence." In pure Cinderella-story fashion, the musician found himself having dinner with the Voodoo Crew and Michel Gondry, and suddenly a deal was inked. Maybe we best let Shimkovitz, who also took a rather elongated moment to speak with us, relay the bizarre details herself, in her own slightly roundabout way:
"For a few years now, schizophrenics and psychics have been telling us (Bianca and I) that we’ve been walking this earth flanked by a pair of big cats. Lions, tigers, cougars...? We weren’t quite sure what the hell any of it meant, although we have a friend who gets told a lot that she’s surrounded by a German Shepard and a mermaid, so we hoped maybe these big cats were spirit guides or something.
"Then, a couple weeks ago, the entire crew was over to give a first listen to Bianca and her sister’s newest album. This CD literally rolled out from behind the bookshelf. No kidding bro, it just rolled out like a golden coin. The CD itself was adorned with pictures of lions and the words 'lion land.'
"Just as everyone was bundling themselves up with all their inertia set forth towards the door and separate, frigid journeys home, Bianca curiously slipped the CD in the stereo. A warm, howling wave of screams and whispers and pounding drums that felt like hugs reigned on the entire room. All the farewell chatter dropped off, all the coats and scarves melted to the floor, and all the jaws dropped to the knees in which we were all inexplicably, suddenly, hypnotically resting.
"What the hell was this? Who the hell? Where the hell did this wild free sound come from?
"After giving Lion Land a few listens, we scraped ourselves off the ground and set out to find this tribe. We looked first in the wilderness, because it seemed the only place a sound like this could come from, and there we found Quinn Walker, a one-man tribe, as it turned out. The most feral musician I’ve ever seen. So wholly out of control onstage that it seems impossible that this boy can even keep a firm grip on his maracas, let alone tie all the wild sounds together in one beautiful package of musical pastries and T-bone steaks. But he does. The ways in which he holds it all together is one of those miracles you’d rather just believe in than deconstruct.
"How did we get that disc? Some believe it was thrown onstage during a CocoRosie show, but us, we know it’s a physical impossibility for anything from a show to find it’s way into anyone’s bag and back to Bianca’s apartment. That almost never happens. And the likelihood that it would hide behind the only bookshelf in her whole apartment and make us find it just at the exact moment we did is even more abstract. We think there’s something more sinister behind it. We think Quinn might be a dark witch. Only time will tell."
Right, what she said.
www.voodooeros.com
http://prod1.cmj.com/articles/display_article.php?id=29547343
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So my ipod auto-sorts music into genres and where does 'Lion Land' end up? Rock? Electronica? Alternative? No.... Children's Music! Thanks Quinn, thanks for screwing up all the little children!!!!
