Field Studies

Description

Quasis first three seminal studio albums 1997s R&B Transmogrification, 1998s Featuring Birds and 1999s Field Studies reissued on vinyl.

Indie rock had seen power duos before Guvner, Royal Trux, Buckingham-Nicks, Carpenters but theyd never sounded like Quasi. Drumming like a controlled detonation; mutant blues coming out of an electric harpsichord or guitar by turns. Backwards through the backwoods of AM pop and Pebbles psych to create a new form: bar room baroque. Honey-golden multitracked vocals and some of the bleakest, black-eyed, black-hearted lyrics put to paper since Lou Reed woke up in a bad mood. All played with the kind of ramshackle ease that only comes from weeks of practice, months in the van and serious chops.

Janet Weiss and Sam Coomes first collaborated in 1990 as Motorgoat but by 1993 they had become Quasi. 1997s R&B Transmogrification is where they define their double act. Musically Coomes and Weiss are always greater than the sum of their parts. They just fit together, like a two-piece jigsaw puzzle.

Featuring Birds is Quasi at their peak, melding jams-kicking rock & roll, punk action and chord shifts that feel like the change of a season. The success of Weisss other group, Sleater-Kinney, in the meantime was clearly only firing up, rather than undercutting Quasi. The songs slide from science fictional dystopia on Our Happiness Is Guaranteed and I Never Want to See You Again, to wage-slave class war on The Happy Prole and Sea Shanty.

Does Field Studies have an Elliott Smith turn to the harmonies? Maybe both Quasi and Smith have a Heatmiser influence, given thats the Portland band that Coomes and Smith had played in together. As one of their biggest fans, Clouds was one of Smiths favourite live covers and Smith plays bass on three of Field Studies tracks, returning the favour for the many live shows in which Weiss and Coomes were his backing group.