QUAN’s new solo album The Amateur is steadily growing great responses… see the great review from Time Off.
The new website up and growing with a free promo download track ARE YOU THE BEAT I’M LOOKING FOR?
www.quantheamateur.com
Quan is a short extract from a love letter, an Amateur (from the latin ‘Amator’-'Lover’, from Amare ‘to love’) ineptly following the natural course of things since forever.
Apparently a photon that begins it’s life in the centre of the sun spends on average about 10 and a half million light years zigzaging to and fro as it slowly works it’s way to the surface, a distance that if traveled in a straight line would take a mere 2.5 seconds. It then takes a further 8.5 minutes to reach the earth.
Furthermore our Sun Converts Five Million tones of Mass (about the equivalent of a million elephants) into pure energy every second.
These factoids remind me of two things: 1. The virtue of patience and 2. That the immolation of a human heart pales in comparison to that of a Star’s. (Or is it the other way round?)
Is this a foundation for Hip Hop? Yes.
Quan Yeomans from Regurgitator finally delivers his 4 year labour of love on again off again requiem to those heady amateur days. Recorded in Sydney, London, Hong Kong, flight lounges, bus stops, doorways… and now making as many music videos as he can. Features The One, Gimme Gimme, And this is what she said…, Year of the Jerk and more. Touring in 2009.
Is this the beat you been looking for?
QUAN THE AMATEUR out now on Valve/MGM. For interviews, images and more contact brian@rishrecords.com or consume1@ozemail.com.au www.quantheamateur.com
QUAN
The Amateur
(Valve/MGM)
Statement of intent: to review this new album of Quan’s without referring to that band. You know. The one starting with R. Not gonna happen. “Why oh why, reviewer of mine,” you ask? Well, because this is a different creature. The Amateur is quite clearly a hip hop record. On top of that, it’s one of those rare Aussie hip hop releases that, thankfully, don’t sound particularly Australian. Quan’s voice may sound familiar here and there, and the sense of humour is still there (eg: “I got a cock and I got a vagina/ I got plot like Jerry Bruckheimer”), but production wise you’re looking at some of the most original sounding stuff since Pharrell was actually a producer and not a celebrity.
Here’s a quick rundown: you’ve got the opening, Spod-featuring ‘Gimme Gimme’ with its double time beat and slightly awkward flow that’s begging for a festival crowd (Is this even intended to be played live? Let’s hope so.), the Phantom of the Opera on minimalism ‘Mouthin’ Off For No Good Reason’, the Japanese robot slaughtering The Presets ‘Year Of The Jerk’. You getting the idea yet? It’s not all bleepy though; there’s a decent Tone-Loc sort of guitar vibe going on in ‘…And This Is What She Said’, and a sort of electric motorcycle revving backing up the clearly R&B ‘The One’ (a tune that sounds so ‘normal’ that I listened intently twice through waiting for the joke. Oh there it is.)
Hopefully The Amateur is a sign of things to come for Australian hip hop; something genuinely original and still incredibly listenable. Dig it.
HHHH Tal Wallace (TIME OFF Oct 2008)