stream Qui's new LP 'Snuh' (ft. Dale Crover, Justin Pearson, Trevor Dunn)

Noise rock duo Qui are releasing their first proper full-length studio album since 2014’s Life, Water, Living…, Snuh, this Friday (8/3) via The Locust/Dead Cross/Head Wound City member Justin Pearson‘s Three One G label (pre-order). (They have had plenty of other releases in between these two albums, though.) The band used to count The Jesus Lizard’s David Yow as a member, and sometimes he still collaborates with them, but while he isn’t on this album, a few other very cool guests are, including Justin Pearson, Melvins’ Dale Crover (who Qui made an EP with in 2016), Mr. Bungle’s Trevor Dunn (who Qui made an album with in 2017), and Dumb Numbers‘ Adam Harding. Like many Qui releases, it was produced by former Big Business member (and frequent Melvins collaborator) Toshi Kasai, and some songs were co-produced with Dale Crover.

Here’s what vocalist/guitarist Matt Cronk tells us about the new album:

Snuh has been a long time in the making. Since the release of our last proper LP, Life, Water, Living… in 2014, we have released eight 7” singles, two 10” EPs, a collaborative LP and two Split LPs. All the while we have looked anxiously forward to a time when the stars would align and a situation would present itself that allowed us to release Snuh in the fashion we wanted (multiple formats, 180 gram vinyl, US and EU distribution, etc.). So here we are and here it is.

It is difficult for me, and I would imagine most artists, to discuss a completed work beyond the nuts and bolts, mechanics and stats. I will give it a shot, though. While none of our records sound alike, there is a continuity that I hope comes across throughout our entire body of work. Never having really fit into any particular scene or sound and perpetually relegated to the margins, we have always prided ourselves on being autonomous and somewhat iconoclastic.

Snuh is our most complete expression of that iconoclasm.

Every facet of our modality is present and pushed to further extremes; our ugliest ugly, our prettiest pretty, and more drastic juxtapositions of the two. We have been criticized as being too varied in our sound, I have heard or read the word, “schizophrenic,” used more than once. Recently a critic even posited that our music was perhaps one, big piss-take, an endurance test of sorts to see just how much our audience would tolerate. I think it’s fair to say he and others of that mind will not like Snuh. In keeping with our consistently inconsistent M.O, the sounds vary from moment to moment, song to song. The album features guest cameos from new and old collaborators, a wider pallet of timbres, and recurring musical themes throughout, the overall effect being that of a cohesive pastiche. Toshi Kasai’s unique and adventurous production, always present in our records, is it’s most pronounced to date.

Snuh is another iteration of and extrapolation upon our oeuvre. We like it.

Good day.

If you laughed to yourself while reading Matt Cronk talk about the critic who called their music “one, big piss-take,” then Snuh is probably right up your alley. It’s far from easy listening, but if your tastes gravitate towards the highly eccentric, Snuh should delight in its weirdness. A full stream of the album premieres below.