Stephen Malkmus, Matt Sweeney, Emmett Kelly and Jim White are The Hard Quartet.
Collectively covering musical ground as members of Pavement, Dirty Three, Bonnie Prince Billy, Ty Segall, Chavez and more, as The Hard Quartet these four musicians selflessly merge, become musical, and emit rock ’n’ roll that is familiar but new, warm but icy, melodic but Sphinx-like in its seductive and subtle riddles…
“There are older vibes: getting older, it’s less about having to prove yourself.”—S.M.
“We come from such different places and we’ve have such different career histories, but I think that now we’re all in a similar place, which is kind of strange to acknowledge.”—E.K.
Their eponymous debut album, a double, brings together years of collective influence, inspiration and inhibition but more than anything it harnesses the intuitive nature of these musicians to get inside the song and bring out it’s best side. As a first effort it’s an instant classic.
