Customer Reviews

Quique (Redux Edition)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been trying to snatch up a copy of this CD for awhile now.'Quique' is apparently this UK band's first release.A worthy title where dreamy electronic successfully cross-breeds with techno.Most of the nine cuts here average seven minutes in length.Total duration is 63:23.Good song structure,I thought.Great chill-out music to fully experience.No best tunes here,they're all good.But,the ones that I thought were most impressive are "Climactic Phase #3","Industrious" and "Plainsong".Line-up:Sarah Peacock-vocals,Mark Clifford-guitar,Darren Seymour-bass and Justin Fletcher-drums.Might appeal to fans of My Bloody Valentine,Orbital,Spacetime Continuum and Mouse On Mars.

Seefeel's Quique steps in right where 'My Bloody Valentine' left off. Loveless and Quique are 2 of my favorite CD's of all time. The 2 are just perfect together. I now know why MBV never had a follow up to Loveless. It was because it would have sounded exactly like Quique, and they would have looked like rip-off artists. I say, this was the MBV killer. But, even if you aren't an MBV fan, get it. It's one of the most important releases of the early 90s.

I can't really supply you with any background about this band, but I can tell you that this is a splendidly crafted album. A blend of floaty My Bloody Valentinish mood, and catchy digital atmospherics, See Feel is a sedative. I play this album at the end of long days....just enough rhythm to keep your attention on the melody, and not too much to distract you from the true ambience that drips from every song. You wont' regret this one, truly beautiful from beginning to end.

Seefeel was a relatively shortlived band, and this album serves as their peak release. They collaged a couple of EPs to make their closest thing to an equal effort when they made Polyfusia, but it would seem Quiqe was the most conceptual and full effort they would make. When starting out, with the idea of being a sort of contemporary rock band, Seefeel would become drawn to electronic instrumentation and looping and multi-instrumental compositions that combined all of those elements along with lush and subtle female vocals. Some songs have a more human touch and others have a more synthetic production edge. This album alludes to ideas of new wave and shoegaze beginning days, sometimes in aesthetics, other times by way of experimentation aspects. The splicing together of all the electronica and guitaring and bass work and sometimes acoustic drums/sometimes drum machines really turned out to be something of a different breed. Lots of sound washes and thick ambient layering. With the adding and subtracting of soft drones accompanied by the tender and angelic voice of Sarah Peacock, Seefeel was sure to make a mark as completely unique and soul-charming. This album is very much psychedllic and atmospheric, and it remains humble all the while. Real shame the band never captured that creative premise later on with the Soccour LP; the Starethrough EP seems to run along the same angle as Quique, but leaves much to be desired, as it is only four songs long. For the amount of time Seefeel were together Quique, to me, showcases how wonderful things can turn out if people think outside the box and push themselves to create expression that they haven't done before.

Seefeel was a wonderful early 90's band influenced by My Bloody Valentine and The Orb (wasn't everyone then?) but DEFINITELY had their own thing happening. Their first album "Quique", and a collection of EP's "Polyfusia" were fabulous. Dreamy, ethereal singing compliments of Sarah Peakock combine with Mark Clifford's effects laden guitar backdrops, along with dub-heavy bass lines and what sounds like both electronic and acoustic drums/ percussion to make a very impressive sonic landscape that should appeal to fans of ambient/shoegazer/dream pop music.
Imagine The Coucteau Twins jamming with Jah Wobble and having Kevin Shields add some of his (at least at one time!!) trademark guitar warblings and you have some idea.
Their first album/cd "Quique" has been remastered and a second disc of remixes and extra tracks from the same sessions has been added. I got mine for $17 from CD Universe.
Listen and be prepared to be transported to your favorite place in your mind and listen to sounds of cosmic tones for mental therapy.

I love Seefeel. This album is extremely difficult to find. I have a burned copy, my friend made it for me after I somehow lost the original? I've listened to this for many years now as my head was at rest against a pillow. I never get tired of it, ever. If you love washes and waves of soothing music floating above your head, you'll love seefeel.

No sustained explosive release characterizes the growth and climax of the tracks on Seefeel's "Quique" , a hybrid shoegazing release, and those who were immersed in shoegaze music can recall that one of the more notable, somewhat universal features of that genre was the tendency for the sound to build toward toward dynamic peaks from low-to-moderate beginnings. Seefeel, under the direction of Mark Clifford, combined the usage of guitars processed heavily through effects racks with the ambience of phased electronic instrumentation to create soundscapes that eschewed most of the typical features universally associated with the structure of songs progressing along linear, conventional lines, but still retained the rich, overlapping wall-of-sound characteristic of the shoegazing movement.

"Climactic Phase 3", the opening track, is probably the most representative in terms of how this dynamic informed their sound. Somewhat heavily pronounced, a bassline appears to anchor the song, but doesn't actually emerge until treated guitar and synthesizer have been overlayered to the extent that both seem to integrate into an immersive melody, though both are built around a minimal hook. The track builds almost incrementally, in a definite accretive fashion, richly textured but never breaking out of a moderate tempo.

And beyond the bass, the percussive element has an almost conveyor-belt like quality to it, mechanized and with an irresistible sense of forward motion, especially noticeable on "Polyfusion" . A centrifugal, bubble-in-the-level swirl of synthesizers creates the sense of being trapped in the cavitational wake of a submersible vehicle, during "Imperial", after the opening track possibly the densest on this release.

Sarah Peacock's vocals never seem to rise much higher than the instrumentation within the mix (and in any case seem to be nonsensical), in all probability included as another instrument to be mixed into the repetitious yet somewhat hypnotic texture, heard most clearly on "Plainsong".

Seefeel's music, though minimalist in composition with regard to the member's respective instruments, is languidly and lovingly layered, and while certainly trance-inducing, can be surprisingly sensual. A meditative, immersive work, "Quique" still has the capacity to amaze 18 years after its release, and not just because it simultaneously smoothed out and amped-up the shoegazing genre as a pioneering work.

In 1993 I told a friend at a record store that I wanted something ambient. He told me I had to get Quique. So I took it home and put it on, and I don't think I listened to anything else for a week. I'd never heard anything else like it. I still haven't.

I've listened to my share of 90's trance and ambient. Today it never occurs to me to listen to 90's electronic music - it just sounds so, erm, 90's electronic. It does, however, occur to me to listen to Quique. It is still disorienting and enchanting, even fourteen years later. This album is its own genre and of its own time, and I believe it will always work. I'm not really into much electronic music, but Quique is a solid, very thoughtful and very beautiful album. It would make my all-time top 100 list.

Looking for some IDM? This is it! Even though I do not really care for labeling music, IDM seems to be the term to describe this band. But beware! They have a very unique sound of their own.

This release on the then very hip British label Too Pure (also Stereolab, Moonshake, PJ Harvey etc), is quite easily their best effort. Although they later signed to WARP, a more fitting environment, they have never been able to surpass this gem. Everything is well balanced on this CD & you can listen to it on long, lonely rides at night or in a energetic, pulsing nightspot. The beats are right on & the somewhat haunting vocals of Sarah Peacock are remniscent of the Cocteau Twins & like bands. The swirling guitars give it a shoegazer like makeover turning their sound into something extraordinary.

Related Bands: Disjecta & Sneakster (Mark Clifford), Scala (other 3 of the band). Scala would be the one to check out, even though their releases are hard to come by.

Highly recommended

I had the original a LONG time ago... has been missing and was so happy to see it reissued!!
Amazing work, highly recommended of course!