THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “The Hard Quartet are a band. But what is a band? A band, perhaps, can be thought of as a body, a corpus, in which physically discrete lifeforms comprise a chimera that shrieks with one voice. In this particular band, which is one of millions in the world today, four players selflessly merge, become musical, and emit rock ’n’ roll that is familiar but new, warm but icy, melodic but Sphinx-like in its seductive and subtle riddles… essentially, The Hard Quartet have leveled, cultivated, and made lush an entirely new steppe in the ecosystem of guitar-bass-drums-voice agriculture.
The Hard Quartet are comprised of:
• Emmett Kelly, a songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist best known for his work in The Cairo Gang and The Double, as well as in the company of artists such as Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Ty Segall, Rob Mazurek, and many more.
• Stephen Malkmus, a songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist best known for his work with Pavement, The Jicks, Silver Jews, Straw Dogs and eponymously.
• Matt Sweeney, a songwriter, guitarist, producer and vocalist best known for his work with Chavez, Superwolf, his music for Red Dead Redemption 2 and his guitar work in the company of a panoply of artists from Guided By Voices and Cat Power to Johnny Cash and Adele.
• Jim White, a drummer and songwriter best known for his work with Dirty Three, Xylouris White, eponymously and with such stalwarts as Guy Picciotto, Cat Power, Bill Callahan and Venom P Stinger.
Says Kelly: “Leave yourself behind and go into something where you’re actually listening to others and trying to come up with a solution to whatever kind of esoteric thing you are attempting to do in your life. You know what I mean?”
Ssays Malkmus: “We’re all jazzed.”
Says Sweeney: “The way Jim plays really affected the way I hear things. He has this way of making everything sound good. All of a sudden, you really pay attention to everything else that’s going on because of what Jim is doing.”
Says White: “There’s this thing where I’ll have a story in my head when I have an intention, and I can hear it in the drums. It doesn’t matter if I tell anyone — even the people I’m playing with. You don’t even have to be particularly conscious of it yourself. But if you have an intention, something happens to the sound. It’s really weird.”
