Electro Quarterstaff complete new album

22 November 2010 | 3:44 pm | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

Canada's Electro Quarterstaff have completed work on their new album, entitled Aykroyd. Guitarist Drew Johnston offers his comments: "It may take us three years to write a record, but better late than never, right? Our Aykroyd album is a 40 minute extract of musical punchlines that have been cracking us up in our jam space for the last three years as a supercharged quintet since the addition of our bassosaurus, Marty Thiessen. A guru of jazz funk hipcheck beatdowns, Marty furnishes the band with a luxurious layer of global warming which allows the trinity of rusty corkscrewed guitars to explore serpent coiled passageways and renegade escape routes through the dark halls of bittersweet harmony and dissonance. "The greatest difference between Aykroyd and Gretzky is the emphasis we've placed on blackened comedy in the attitude of our music. Strategic blast beat proton bombardment punctuates chipmunk cheeks full of hangnail shaped riffs which spontaneously arrange themselves into cosm...

Canada's Electro Quarterstaff have completed work on their new album, entitled Aykroyd. Guitarist Drew Johnston offers his comments:


"It may take us three years to write a record, but better late than never, right? Our Aykroyd album is a 40 minute extract of musical punchlines that have been cracking us up in our jam space for the last three years as a supercharged quintet since the addition of our bassosaurus, Marty Thiessen. A guru of jazz funk hipcheck beatdowns, Marty furnishes the band with a luxurious layer of global warming which allows the trinity of rusty corkscrewed guitars to explore serpent coiled passageways and renegade escape routes through the dark halls of bittersweet harmony and dissonance.


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"The greatest difference between Aykroyd and Gretzky is the emphasis we've placed on blackened comedy in the attitude of our music. Strategic blast beat proton bombardment punctuates chipmunk cheeks full of hangnail shaped riffs which spontaneously arrange themselves into cosmic pentagrams of circus peanuts upon deployment. In other words, big laughs and bad vibes all around. Usually I'm sick of my own records by the time they're mixed and mastered, but Aykroyd still eats off the floor and lifts up my skirt like a deprived predator out on parole. The harmonies are still thick and tangled like peanut butter in shag carpet, and the delivery is dolphin meat in shark's teeth. Party's over."


Aykroyd was recorded by John Paul Peters at Private Ear Recording and mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music. The recording will be released early Spring 2011 on Willowtip Records (CD) and War On Music Records (LP).


A preview track taken from Aykroyd can currently be streamed from the band's MySpace page.