Quarters!

Quarters! is the sixth studio album by Australian psychedelic rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. It was released on 12 May 2015 on Heavenly Records peaking at No. 99 on the ARIA Charts, a first for the band.[1]

Quarters!
Studio album by
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard
Released12 May 2015 (2015-05-12)
Recorded
  • 29 May 2014 (track 2)
  • 3 November 2014 (tracks 1, 3 and 4)
  • 2 December 2014 (add.)
Studio
  • Ski lodge at Hunter Mountain, New York (track 2)
  • Daptone, New York (tracks 1, 3 and 4)
  • Apartment in London (add.)
Genre
Length40:40
Label
  • Heavenly
  • Flightless
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

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

Background

The album features four songs, each running for ten minutes and ten seconds[2] 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 by the band 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".[3]

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
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

The album consists in four psychedelic pop songs with length of ten minutes and ten seconds.[6] "The River" is a Traffic-style jazz-rock song with Santana-esque congas.[6]

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

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

All tracks are written by Stu Mackenzie.

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

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
Chart (2015) Peak
position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[1] 99
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References
  1. Wallace, Ian (1 June 2015). "Week Commencing ~ 1st June 2015 ~ Issue #1318" (PDF). The ARIA Report. Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) (1318): 8. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 June 2015. Retrieved 9 June 2017.
  2. "King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard* - Quarters!". Discogs. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  3. "King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard's 'Quarters!' Reviewed In Quarters". Tone Deaf. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
  4. "King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard: We should have started a taxi service". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  5. "Reviews for Quarters! by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard". Metacritic. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  6. Sendra, Tim. "Quarters! - King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard | Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 25 March 2017.
  7. 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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