quiet magazine

It seems strange to think of Chris Cooper’s Lines as a “debut album,” considering the artist behind it has long been a fixture in Sylva’s music community. But Lines, recorded in 2011 at Western Carolina University and only recently released, is the first collection of Cooper’s original jazz-fusion compositions to be made available for purchase.

Lines displays exactly what music listeners in Jackson County have come to expect from Cooper: sharp, technical guitar work; fluency across a wide array of styles; and a sense of subtlety too rarely displayed among adherents of the Joe Satriani School of Witchcraft and Guitar Wizardry.

Cooper is joined on the recording by a tight trio of respected players – Dan Gonko on drums, Justin Powell on keys, and Owen Tharp on bass – but Lines is unabashedly a guitar album, from the understated opening lines of “An Inquiry” to the final harmonic of the acoustic postlude “Autumn.” Continue reading →

Quiet has been very, well… quiet over the last six months or so. Let’s not get into it. But there are a few things worth talking about happening at the moment, so there may be a brief flurry of posts.

Meanwhile, let’s take a quick dip into the rumor mill. Things to know:

• Local  (pictured) has been in the studio sporadically over the past few months and should have a recording to show for it very soon.
• PMA is in roughly the same boat.
• Quiet superfavorite Luke Webb of The Imperative fame has been working out new material with a new outfit of late, but no one’s making any promises.

Raleigh/Asheville 5-piece Oulipo bring their complex, ethereal indie-pop to Guadalupe this Friday for the second show of their two-week tour of North Carolina, Virginia, Tennesee and Georgia.

Joining them will be Morbids, featuring Sylva natives Ed Madill and Spencer Bradley of Wyla.

Click here to view the Facebook event.

(Side note: Oulipo will also play with Sylva’s Total War at the Well in Knoxville on Saturday. But that’s a long way to drive.)