The members of The Exhausting Quartet, a brand new supergroup that includes among the most revered names previously three a long time of indie rock, are passing a swelteringly sizzling summer season morning in a serene backyard in Manhattan’s East Village. Guitarist and songwriter Matt Sweeney acts as a sort of spokesperson, detailing their historical past with the narrative aptitude and self-awareness of a speaking head in a retrospective documentary. Chiming in with the occasional commentary are guitarist Emmett Kelly and drummer Jim White, a pair who steadily carry out collectively and appear to speak largely by means of their eyes. Considerably faraway from the proceedings is Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus, as relaxed and boyish as ever, doing a solar salutation pose within the grass, the place he spies a rolled-up leaf and holds it earlier than his bandmates.
“This kinda appears to be like like a blunt,” he deadpans.
By the point that Sweeney can establish its precise origins (it’s a Rose of Sharon), Malkmus is already riffing on what else it may very well be—a chrysalis about to launch a butterfly, the overstuffed cigarettes {that a} mutual acquaintance is understood to roll. Quickly, the entire group is reflecting and laughing and providing a window into the free-wheeling course of that informs their proudly leaderless new collaboration: an thought first proposed by Sweeney over the cellphone to Malkmus throughout the early days of the pandemic, and now introducing itself to the world with a riffy anthem referred to as “Earth Hater” and a collection of reside dates in New York, Los Angeles, and London.
This primary glimpse of the band’s sound—catchy and off-kilter, liable to intuitive stops and begins, and stuffed with quippy, quotable lyrics (“The archetype of the narc is everlasting,” Malkmus sings)—is an acceptable introduction. Every member speaks to the band’s early days with the identical sense of pleasure and exhilaration. They saved the method improvisatory, low-key, and unique, surveying family and friends in regards to the work-in-progress materials to take care of its sanctity. “That’s the perfect feeling,” Sweeney displays, “when no one else is aware of.” Earlier than he can embellish the thought, Malkmus cuts in: “And when your desires haven’t been crushed by {the marketplace}.”
He’s kidding, however a agency, old-school indie mentality does sit on the middle of those musicians’ Venn Diagram (alongside formative influences like Slade and The Saints, each of whom obtain enthusiastic shout-outs throughout our dialog). Along with main the indie rock band Chavez, Sweeney has made two acclaimed albums with Bonnie “Prince” Billy within the duo Superwolf and performed on albums by Cat Energy, Iggy Pop, Adele, Run the Jewels, and Johnny Money. Jim White, greatest recognized for his work within the instrumental rock group The Soiled Three, has additionally held down the package for Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, and Invoice Callahan. Emmett Kelly, the youngest member of the band, releases singer-songwriter albums as The Cairo Gang, and he’s additionally performed with Angel Olsen, Beth Orton, and Ty Segall. If you’re a fan of any nook of indie rock, it’s virtually not possible that your report assortment doesn’t embody one thing touched by every member of the band.
After collaborating in numerous permutations and working into one another steadily on the street, the concept of creating music collectively—by no one’s guidelines however their very own, distinct from any trade traits or requirements—felt like a no brainer. Sweeney appears to be like again in awe on the Exhausting Quartet’s first week of working collectively, throughout which they rapidly amassed practically an album’s price of songs and settled into an id that felt distinct from any of their earlier tasks. (“This isn’t a mission—it’s a band,” Malkmus says firmly. Sweeney responds with a triumphant, guttural, “Yeeeah!”) Even the band title—a pun that advantages from saying it out loud—was the results of an natural course of by way of group textual content thread: “It’s targeted and goofy,” Sweeney says of the dynamic. “Nobody’s been kicked out but.” (Rejected title concepts embody Glass Sarcophagus, Iron Chad, and Divorce Doulas.)
With a bounty of fabric able to carry out and the discharge of “Earth Hater”’s trippy claymation video, which Sweeney calls a “absolutely bent public service announcement,” every of the members speaks excitedly in regards to the band’s future, which appears to be like as open-ended and stuffed with chance as their origins. “There’s loads of instances that [bands] are available with luster and issues simply wither,” Malkmus admits. “However I don’t see that occuring. If we’re digging it then it continues and blossoms.”
