| Having recently toured his native Australia with electronic duo Ratatat, Qua (Cornel Wilczek) has much in common with his American tourmates. Both acts explore sonic palettes that go beyond mere genre surfaces, especially in their mining for influences in world and folk music. The percussion-heavy record Q&A has all the genre twists of Ratatat’s LP3, except imagine their oddity and experimentation scaled up and hip-hop influences scaled down. With the help of James Cecil (of Architecture in Helsinki) and Laurence Pike (of Savath + Savalas, Pivot and Triosk), Qua makes electronic music on a human scale, with beats and sounds that actually sound manmade in their percussive range and acoustic frequency. The barely identifiable found sounds, which includes motley arrangements of flutes, screeches and bloops, make this an expansive, ecstatic record full of endless beats and masterful compositions. Rare is the kind of experimental record that doesn’t occasionally overindulge in the use of sonic oddities, but Qua creates a record full of atmospheric arrangements that are as wildly danceable as they are aurally enervating. The mish-mash of noises, strings, horns, keyboards and synthesizer with full percussive backing is familiar in its reach toward electro-pop sensibilities but completely unfamiliar in their improvisational style (although given Qua’s talents as a producer and engineer, each song is calculated and measured with great care). This is the work of a musician with a full set of musical tools and compositional prowess. - Evil Monito |
