Sterogum Band To Watch: Quinn Walker
"We come across plenty of one-man (or woman) bands, but not all of them can sound like an entire fun house orchestra dishing out madcap pop and a lost loner psych home recordist channeling his demons, all in the space of one section of one song."
http://stereogum.com/archives/band-to-watch/artist-to-watch-quinn-walker_007336.html
Harp Magazine
"Quinn loves to guide his songs to hyperreal, ear-invading climaxes, making it easy to get lost in the hall of mirrors of his mind."
http://www.harpmagazine.com/reviews/cd_reviews/detail.cfm?article_id=6802
Mp3.com: Up and Coming
"The 29-track imaginatorium is both a mindblower and a mindmelter. The first half concentrates more on analog instrumentation, and the second half adds more bleeps and blips from electronic equipment."
"Quinn Walker, who may be downright insane (and that's fine), is a fresh artist in a soundscape dominated by more of the same dreck. Music fans looking for an alternative to routine should immediately gnaw through their shackles and give Walker a listen."
http://www.mp3.com/news/stories/10873.html
Music for kids who can't read good
"It is my opinion that Quinn Walker, who's been aptly described as a "brazen experimental baroque-folk artist", is the biggest undiscovered treasure of 2008 thus far."
"his album is full of moments of pure musical genius"
http://musicforants.com/blog/?p=610
NPR
"Quinn Walker is a brazen experimental baroque-folk artist. His first studio solo record is a double disc, one titled Laughter's An A**hole, the other Lion Land. Both are wildly unpredictable and sonically thrilling. While Walker infuses his music with a sense of humor and playfullness, he laces his songs with deeper meditations on themes that range from fear and madness to love and romance."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18144921
WNYC Spinning Air ( listen to the show)
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/spinning/episodes/2008/01/27
Pitchfork
"the rest of the disc is alternately beautiful, silly, fantastic, goofy, and wonderful mood pieces akin to the Animal Collective axis. It's all so unpredictable, so inherently whimsical, colorful and kaleidoscopic, that it's practically psychedelic by default. The lack of focus is the focus, and on those paradoxical terms it's a pretty wild and wooly success."
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/50345-laughters-an-assholelion-land
Tiny Mix Tapes
"Then there are shamans like Quinn Walker, who simply have no choice. They expel bursts of genius from their bodies like pus exploding from a swollen boil, and they can’t help it; it’s just how they roll. The end result of Walker’s artistic wellspring, where double album Laughter’s an Asshole/Lion Land is concerned, is a confusing whole. I’m not sure I could name a single track that doesn’t instantly fascinate me." http://tinymixtapes.com/Quinn-Walker
Baltimore City Paper
"Walker is no weirdo; he's more like an unconventional, realist-jokester motivational speaker." http://www.citypaper.com/music/review.asp?rid=12720
FADER F2 Magazine
"The key to being a successful and, more importantly, good folk artist in 2008 is to nod to the past while simultaneously venturing forth into new territory." "The Entrance Band, Mariee Sioux, Michael Gira, Phosphorescent and Quinn Walker — have achieved this balance, creating dynamic music with every bit as much heart as the folk music of prior generations. They may glance backward, but they are firmly planted in the now." http://www.thefader.com/articles/2008/11/11/f2-issue-4-the-new-folk
My Old Kentucky Blog Interviews Quinn Walker
"LaA/LL, technically not his first album but first to be released on a label, is brimming with creativity, which ranges from warm-yourself-by-the-fire pop to burn-yourself-in-the-fire noise freak-outs. Throw a little subtle humor into the mix and you've got an album as colorful as the vomit he is spewing on the cover art. Walker succeeds here on several levels - most notably in terms of pushing the envelope. Simply put, he makes music feel exciting while making other music feel boring in comparison." http://myoldkyhome.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-old-kentucky-blog-interviews-quinn.html
CMJ-Quinn Walker Casts Spell Over Voodoo-EROS
Brooklyn label Voodoo-EROS, which is run by Militia Shimkovitz and CoCoRosie’s Bianca Casady, has a new signee. Quinn Walker, who has self-released records in the double digits, is a tough one to categorize, but in his own words, his music is best summed up as "experimental pop." In an interview with CMJ, he adds that, "I try to include elements of every genre in what I do 'cause there's always at least one or two incredible sounds birthed by every musical category, so everything I hear and do and see plays a role as an influence." In pure Cinderella-story fashion, the musician found himself having dinner with the Voodoo Crew and Michel Gondry, and suddenly a deal was inked. Maybe we best let Shimkovitz, who also took a rather elongated moment to speak with us, relay the bizarre details herself, in her own slightly roundabout way:
"For a few years now, schizophrenics and psychics have been telling us (Bianca and I) that we’ve been walking this earth flanked by a pair of big cats. Lions, tigers, cougars.? We weren’t quite sure what the hell any of it meant, although we have a friend who gets told a lot that she’s surrounded by a German Shepard and a mermaid, so we hoped maybe these big cats were spirit guides or something.
"Then, a couple weeks ago, the entire crew was over to give a first listen to Bianca and her sister’s newest album. This CD literally rolled out from behind the bookshelf. No kidding bro, it just rolled out like a golden coin. The CD itself was adorned with pictures of lions and the words 'lion land.'
"Just as everyone was bundling themselves up with all their inertia set forth towards the door and separate, frigid journeys home, Bianca curiously slipped the CD in the stereo. A warm, howling wave of screams and whispers and pounding drums that felt like hugs reigned on the entire room. All the farewell chatter dropped off, all the coats and scarves melted to the floor, and all the jaws dropped to the knees in which we were all inexplicably, suddenly, hypnotically resting.
"What the hell was this? Who the hell? Where the hell did this wild free sound come from?
"After giving Lion Land a few listens, we scraped ourselves off the ground and set out to find this tribe. We looked first in the wilderness, because it seemed the only place a sound like this could come from, and there we found Quinn Walker, a one-man tribe, as it turned out. The most feral musician I’ve ever seen. So wholly out of control onstage that it seems impossible that this boy can even keep a firm grip on his maracas, let alone tie all the wild sounds together in one beautiful package of musical pastries and T-bone steaks. But he does. The ways in which he holds it all together is one of those miracles you’d rather just believe in than deconstruct.
"How did we get that disc? Some believe it was thrown onstage during a CocoRosie show, but us, we know it’s a physical impossibility for anything from a show to find it’s way into anyone’s bag and back to Bianca’s apartment. That almost never happens. And the likelihood that it would hide behind the only bookshelf in her whole apartment and make us find it just at the exact moment we did is even more abstract. We think there’s something more sinister behind it. We think Quinn might be a dark witch. Only time will tell."
