THISQUIETARMY: Democracy of Dust     LP & CD/DL     Midira Records

Looking through Eric Quach’s extensive back catalogue, I am really surprised I haven’t encountered his works before, by the sheer volume of his output in his relatively short tenure.

Blending synth, guitar and other analogue instrumentation, Montreal’s Quach recorded this in residency at Sao Paulo’s Dissenso Studio; and indeed the city itself seems to be the main impetus, thematically as a whole for this release.

Rumbling hypnotic bass lines keep pace over a staggered rhythm section whilst guitars interweave between distorted chords and high resonating drones.  ‘Democracy of Dust’ is a cohesive and well thought out release that is well constructed for the most part; where each track could be viewed as the sum of one larger track.  This is as much a blessing as it is a hindrance though, with some songs fading out and feeling a tad unfinished.  I would personally just have made each track longer and incorporated the smaller pieces into the fold.

Overall though, this is a decent interpretation of the genre, even if Eric lays far too many of his cards on the table; resulting in an album that doesn’t comfortably know where it sits in the grand scheme of things, experimentally speaking.

7.8/10