The Quavers coax a luminous sound out of decayed samplers, footpedal loopers, tape echo violins, vibraphonette and homespun harmonies. Like a space-age Carter Family, they weave low-tech electronics around songs sturdy enough to stand up even if the power goes out. Their intimately cinematic new album, FELL ASLEEP ON A TRAIN is a set of snapshots of lives lived out of suitcases, even at home. It was recorded in Brooklyn and Montreal with members of godspeed you! black emperor and Vic Chesnutt's band.

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ABOUT



The Quavers are T. Griffin, Catherine McRae and Dennis Cronin. They are based in Gowanus, Brooklyn.

In 1995 T. Griffin and Catherine McRae played one 40 minute set at Minneapolis' Uptown Bar. Afterwards Catherine went back to college and Griffin moved to New York to pursue an acting career.

In 1999 T. Griffin recorded the critically acclaimed Tortuga, on a cassette 4-track and a powermac 7600. On New Years day, 2000 he ran into McRae on 9th street and Avenue A. She began joining him every once in a while for his New York shows and played some violin on 2001's Light In The Aisles.

By 2002 they had begun working out an increasingly intricate live show based around guitar, violin, footpedal loopers and two cheap samplers. The Sea Won't Take Long, was recorded in a basement down by Brooklyn's Gowanus canal that had served as a flophouse for Latvian sailors. It was released under the moniker T. Griffin Coraline, and Griffin and McRae toured extensively, crossing the US and playing in Europe and The UK, including shows backing Patti Smith and Tom Verlaine. This was their first recording featuring Montreal-based drummer Bruce Cawdron.

They also began playing regularly with ex-Lambchop multi-instrumentalist and Vitamin-D leader Dennis Cronin, who they met through Vic Chesnutt. Cronin adds trumpet, lap-steel, and vibraphone to the band’s layered sound. 2007’s Lit By Your Phone was written on tour and recorded with only the instruments they could fit in the trunk of the Saturn they traveled in. It was the first recording under the band name The Quavers.

In 2009 Griffin joined the band that Vic Chesnutt put together to support two large-canvas records he had made in Montreal for Constellation records, and which Griffin contributed to. The band included members of Fugazi and godspeed you! black emperor and toured the US and Canada in late 2009 with Griffin on baritone guitar and electronics. A European tour was in the planning stages when Chesnutt died that winter.

As a sideline to songwriting and playing with The Quavers, Griffin has built a strong reputation as a sonically adventurous film composer. He won a coveted fellowship to the Sundance Composers’ lab in 2008 and has twice been nominated for Cinema Eye Honors. He has steadily turned out distinctively atomospheric scores for narrative and documentary films, many going into wide independent release. His score for A Walk Into The Sea was released in 2008. Shiny Little Records is currently planning to release more of his soundtrack music in 2013.

While McRae and Cronin regularly turn up as players on those scores, they had never collaborated on one until academy-award nominated director Sam Green (The Weather Underground) asked them if they would join him in an experimental “live documentary” which he was planning for the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Narrated live by Green, with music composed by, and played live by The Quavers, Utopia in Four Movements was a hit, playing shows all over the world from 2010 until early 2012, concluding with a tour of rural Turkey.

With the release of Fell Asleep on a Train, The Quavers have pulled all of these strands of activity and history to the service of some of Griffin's most expansive, allusive and intimate songs.



PHOTOS

photo: michael ackerman. download



photo: michael ackerman. download



photo: michael ackerman. download



cover design by T Griffin download