Quaich – And Now That We Are Here CD (Polyscope)

Quaich is a remarkable post-rock trio that floats between Athens and Hague. To be more precise, the band was born in Greece but settled down in Hague, in an illegal art shelter where these musicians work together on such a unique sonic artform. And Now That We Are Here is their latest offering to the broader audience, housed in a digipack compact disc that includes an art installation by Taisuke Koyama and Takashi Kawashima. The album comprises six compositions, which rotate between minimalism, complexity, intense dissonance, brilliant harmonizations, but above all, marvelous musicianship.

The album commences with And Now That We’re Here, a jazzy overture that serves as a perfect introduction into the sound of Quaich. It begins with arpeggiated indie rock harmonizations, and rhythms dominantly performed over the snare drums. It proceeds into more post-rock oriented composition that includes even more dissonant jazz progressions. Then the number smoothly transits into I Don’t Need To Know, slightly psychedelic post-rock composition followed by hypnotic repetitious chants. The song remains at the same pace as the previous one, the calmness prevails, but it possesses a dosage of intense vibrations that brings upset feeling right to the table. The progressive bassline wondrously pairs to the arpeggiated guitars, while the experimental drumming technics keep the tension throughout the entire track. The upsetness, however, dictates the delightful dynamics of the Quaich and keep complexity within these boundaries. Making Tea On A Miserable Sunday Morning initiates with controlled white noise, and radio station switching included in between. Chaotic ambiance disturbs these manipulations with drumming fills performed over crispy sounding cymbals. This experimental number serves as a perfect interlude to the fourth track, but also illustrates composers chaotic feeling during the miserable Sunday morning.

This interlude leads straight to a much composite composition simplistically entitled Drowning. Guitars are firing another arpeggiated artillery, accompanied by a stable rhythm section. Quaich evolves into a more post-punk / noise rock orchestra by embracing all the vital elements of these specific genres. The band builds the sonic appearance based upon a singular theme and upgrades it with additional accentuations that lead to the imminent aggressive experimental approach to the overall sound. I Feel Tired provides a settlement, a well-deserved relaxation based upon calmy tones, and repetitious mantra that soothes the soul. It includes sampled guitar sequences that accommodate presented chants in the best possible way. It may appear as a continuation of the mentioned interlude, but this particular track hides more than meets the eye. Quaich closes And Now That We’re Here with Climbing, a logical continuation to a couple of previous numbers. The band incorporates the essentials of indie, post-rock, noise rock, and jazz on Climbing, but the track doesn’t sound off. Somehow, the group managed to bind these essentials all together in homogenous harmony, and reach a sonic singularity by distributing the right amount of each ingredient. It’s a symbiosis that comes close to experimental noise rock, but it’s delicate enough to be classified into art-punk, post-punk, indie music, and psychedelic rock. It unquestionably provides a perfect closure to the entire recording.

Quaich metamorphoses through their compositions. Each number bursts with various sonic delicacies that will undoubtfully suit the admirers of post-punk, art-punk, indie rock, noise rock, psychedelic rock, and post-rock. And Now That We Are Here is distributed physically and digitally through Polyscope, a Greek recording label, and an art platform that includes loads of brilliant artists. Make sure to check their impressive roster. Be quick, because And Now That We Are Here is strictly limited to 150 copies, so act fast and grab a compact disc for yourself.