Quitzow
Art College
Young Love Records
By Jose Fritz
Abroad, cello appears in rock and pop frequently. Domestically, a rock cellist is relegated to the deep dark shelf of the obscure between Rufus Harley and Alamaailman Vasarat. I could write a book on the anthropological significance of cello in pop music, from the fawning appearance of Melora Creager on Nirvana’s MTV unplugged appearance to the clunky rock hard covers of Apocalyptica, cello rock is a genre of mystery and intrigue. It’s goth but it’s also post-classical art-fag. Can I say that?
Well I’ve said it, and get used to the idea. Quitzow is more post-Groovebox than post-classical and despite claims by other critics. I am hesitant to include it in the cello-rock category at all. Everything has its own arête.
Erica Quitzow maneuvers around all these different ideas never once sounding like Murder by Death or the Stiletto Formal. There is nothing emo or rock about her desideratum. I keep coming back to that most rocking Rasputina album, That’s When We Quit the Forest, but that’s only after the crescendos, down in the valleys, out on the salt flats where the beats are naïve, if not innocent. With the tight rhyming patterns and nonsensical lyrics, we’re only a few crass sexual remarks away from Peaches. “Art College” in particular gets cornered at the end of this alley.
“I bought the newspaper / I skim the front cover
Look for my horoscope / I didn’t get the joke
I’ll throw it in the fire / But this ones fate is higher
It’s just a sad hello / I didn’t need to go to Art College”
The album works through the band’s split identity. Some tracks tear off on layers of electronic beats ala Incredible Moses Leroy or even Vic Thrill & The Saturn Missile. Other cuts lumber slowly through their slow processions and Rasputina-like dirges. The only bridge between the extremes is the cello, a 500-year-old instrument.
Choppy, lo-fi Le Tigre beats shuffle their way through unexpected vocoder vocals, sheepishly evading the foils of needless shoe-gazing. Lyrics range from schlocky odes to the joys of cat-ownership and then down into deep into the possibilities of Riot Grrrl ephemera. But the Moogs, the Casios and the strings never go away. They cling to the facade of each song identifying it as Quitzow’s own, like sneakers hanging from the power lines.
Despite the disparate nature of the songs on this album, Quitzow has made something, something of her own. It’s not a quilt, or a macramé purse: this is a more enduring thing. It’s a new notch in the bridge of the cello, a step in the stairs, a place from which other musicians will draw from. Congratulations.
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