Eric Quach has been bombarding us with thisquietarmy releases for twenty years now. The number of collaborations with other artists is huge and includes some important names such as Aidan Baker, Voivod drummer Away, Dirk Serries (Vidna Obmana), Godspeed You! Black Emperor drummer Aidan Girt (as Some Became Hollow Tubes), and the French post-metal band Year Of No Light—all within the experimental music genre. Quach delivers versatile ambient and drone sounds using guitar and effect modules that come alive during his improvisational sets.
Not unlike his previous full-band album efforts The Body and The Earth (2018) and Machine Consciousness, Phase III (2022), Quach set out with high ambition to create something both challenging and groundbreaking. Several professional session musicians from the music residency at the Centre d’Expérimentation Musical (CEM) in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region of Québec were involved in the creation of thisquietarmy’s latest album, Langue Hybride.
The goal was to create one hour of music ready to be performed live, recorded, and filmed in front of an audience. From the very first day, Quach had to compose entirely new material—working with people he had never met or played with before. It turned out to be a blend of classically trained musicians—accustomed to the discipline of sheet music—and jazz, funk, and rock players who thrived on the spirit of improvisation. To bridge the gap between the freeform nature of jazz and the formality of classical music, he had to find ways to nudge everyone, himself included, beyond their comfort zones.
The result is nothing short of amazing. Langue Hybride is an unprecedented sonic panorama, woven together in a dense web of improvisation. This curious amalgam of musical styles evokes echoes of bands like Do Make Say Think, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, Fly Pan Am, and, of course, Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Quach’s guitar sounds heavier than ever, cutting through the colourful explosion of the CEM musicians—who contribute drums, percussion, bass, synth, guitar, violin, and cello.
On Langue Hybride, Quach explores new frontiers of sonic experimentation and discovers a compelling creative chemistry with his collaborators. The album not only opens up new perspectives within the post-rock genre, but also traces a line back to Quach’s roots with his first band, Destroyalldreamers—the Canadian post-rock quartet that eventually gave rise to the anti-band, anti-rule, and anti-label DIY solo project, thisquietarmy.
We are truly stunned.
