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Quarters!

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Quarters!
Studio album by
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard
Released1 May 2015 (2015-05-01)
Recorded
  • 29 May 2014 (track 2)
  • 3 November 2014 (tracks 1, 3–4)
  • 2 December 2014 (add.)
Studio
Genre
Length40:40
Label
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard chronology
I'm in Your Mind Fuzz
(2014) 		Quarters!
(2015) 		Paper Mâché Dream Balloon
(2015)
Singles from Quarters!
  1. "The River"
    Released: 8 April 2015

Quarters! is the sixth studio album by Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. It was released on 1 May 2015[1] on Heavenly Records, peaking at No. 99 on the ARIA Charts.[2]

The album was nominated for Best Jazz Album at the ARIA Music Awards of 2015, losing to Barney McAll for Mooroolbark.

Background

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The album features four songs, each running for ten minutes and ten seconds[3] making each song a quarter of the album - hence the title. Drawing upon jazz-fusion and psychedelic rock, the album's more laid-back sound was described as "unlike anything they’ve released before" and as "an album more likely to get your head bobbing and hips shaking as opposed to losing footwear in a violent mosh".[1]

Stu Mackenzie described how the composition of the album came around in an interview in 2015:

"I wanted to make a record where I didn’t have to yell, as well as exploring some longer, repetitive song structures.” Four tracks, four quarters, each one precisely 10:10 minutes long, each one an extended jam teeming with melodies, the occasional trickle of water, space funk, laughter like Pink Floyd and deliciously unfussy grooves. I also didn’t want to use any brutal guitar pedals or sing through blown-out guitar amps as I usually would."[4]

Reception

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Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic68/100[5]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[6]
The Guardian[7]

Upon its release, Quarters! received generally positive reviews by music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an average score of 68, based on 8 reviews, indicating "generally favorable".[5]

Writing for The Guardian, Everett True claimed during the album that "King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard unravel mysteries, perform magic, tease melodies out of intricately formed musical patterns and do it all with a face that would be straight except it’s taken too many mind-altering substances."[7]

Music

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The album consists of four psychedelic pop songs, all running exactly ten minutes and ten seconds.[6] "The River" is a Traffic-style jazz-rock song with Santana-esque congas.[6] It is the second song by the band to feature an odd time signature, with the majority of the song in 5
4.


Tim Sendra of AllMusic described the album as a "jazz-prog epic."[8] Mike Katzif of NPR described the album's music as "jazz-inflected prog rock."[9]

Track listing

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Vinyl releases have tracks 1–2 on Side A, and tracks 3–4 on Side B.[10]

All tracks are written by Stu Mackenzie.

Quarters! track listing
No.TitleLength
1."The River"10:10
2."Infinite Rise"10:10
3."God Is in the Rhythm"10:10
4."Lonely Steel Sheet Flyer"10:10
Total length:40:40

Personnel

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Credits for Quarters! adapted from liner notes.[11]

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard

  • Michael Cavanagh – drums, conga
  • Cook Craig – guitar
  • Ambrose Kenny-Smith – harmonica, vocals
  • Stu Mackenzie – vocals, guitar
  • Eric Moore – drums, percussion
  • Lucas Skinner – bass
  • Joey Walker – guitar, bass

Production

  • Stu Mackenzie – recording (track 2), additional recording, mixing
  • Wayne Gordon – recording (tracks 1, 3, 4)
  • Joe Carra – mastering
  • Jason Galea – cover, layout, photo

Charts

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Chart performance for Quarters!
Chart (2015) Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[2] 99

References

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  1. ^ a b Weiley, Meaghan (30 April 2015). "King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard's 'Quarters!' Reviewed In Quarters". Tone Deaf. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  2. ^ a b Wallace, Ian (1 June 2015). "Week Commencing ~ 1st June 2015 ~ Issue #1318" (PDF). The ARIA Report (1318). Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA): 8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 June 2015. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
  3. ^ "King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard* - Quarters!". Discogs. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  4. ^ True, Everett (11 June 2015). "King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard: We should have started a taxi service". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  5. ^ a b "Reviews for Quarters! by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard". Metacritic. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  6. ^ a b c Sendra, Tim. "Quarters! - King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard | Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 22 April 2022.
  7. ^ a b True, Everett (29 May 2015). "King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard: Quarters! review – mind-altering musical patterns". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  8. ^ Sendra, Tim. "Nonagon Infinity - King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard | Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 30 April 2019. In 2015 alone they released Quarters, a jazz-prog epic featuring four songs that were each exactly ten minutes long...
  9. ^ Katzif, Mike (21 April 2016). "Review: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, 'Nonagon Infinity'". NPR. Retrieved 30 April 2019.
  10. ^ Quarters! at Discogs (list of releases)
  11. ^ Track listing and credits as per liner notes for Quarters! album
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