Editorial Reviews Music Review:
Music Review
Music: The Stewart Years [Box set] [Live]
Yo-Yo Ma - Simply Baroque II ~ Bach & Boccherini / ABO, Koopman
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The audacious concept of Quasi--a divorced couple playing mournful yet sometimes hilariously embittered songs on only keyboard or guitar and drums--is nicely at odds with the power and catchiness they generate. On their fourth album, former Heatmiser bassist Sam Coomes and indefatigable Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss fill their sound out with a varied palette of keyboard textures and, on two cuts, even a string section. Coomes twists Surf's Up-era Beach Boys style on the deceptively sunny "Under a Cloud," asks "How many hours can a minute hold?" on the sweeping "Me and My Head," and even gets momentarily positive on "Smile." Weiss, for her part, contributes "Two by Two," a brief, beautiful romance postmortem. Stripped down as it may be, Quasi's music is as elegant as Rufus Wainwright's baroque pop, and as magically pained. --Rickey Wright