Quasi

Idiosyncratic indie rock duo Quasi brought together singer/guitarist/keyboardist Sam Coomes and drummer Janet Weiss to craft songs that delivered hard-hitting energy alongside buoyant melodies whenever the pair chose that path. Based in Portland, Oregon, the two had first collaborated in Motorgoat, yet under the Quasi name they allowed their humorous outlook to shape both lyrics and the music’s lively feel, even while directing satire toward weighty topics such as religion on the 2001 release The Sword of God and post-9/11 American politics on the 2003 album Hot Shit. Though the lineup briefly grew to a trio when Jicks bassist Joanna Bolme joined for the 2010 set American Gong, Coomes and Weiss remained the central partnership when they reconvened for the 2023 record Breaking the Balls of History.

Coomes and Weiss spent three years alongside Brad Pedinov in Motorgoat before that trio disbanded, at which point the pair decided to keep working together as the duo Quasi. They issued a self-released cassette in 1993 and a split single with Bügsküll the next year. Because both musicians were simultaneously active elsewhere—Coomes performed in Elliott Smith’s band and contributed to projects with Built to Spill and Pink Mountain, while Weiss played in Sleater-Kinney and appeared with Bright Eyes and Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks—Quasi often took a secondary role, resulting in little new output until 1996, when the collection Early Recordings gathered scarce tracks from 1993 and 1994. In 1997, the same year Weiss appeared on Sleater-Kinney’s Dig Me Out LP, Quasi delivered their debut full-length R&B Transmogrification through the indie imprint Up Records. The follow-up, 1998’s Featuring "Birds", ranked among that year’s most praised independent releases, and 1999 brought the album Field Studies. Entering the new decade, the duo signed with Touch & Go; The Sword of God arrived in 2001 and showcased some of Quasi’s most incisive work to date along with pointed satire aimed at organized religion. Two years afterward, the band’s caustic wit surfaced again on the politically charged Hot Shit, which critiqued the surge of conservatism following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The group returned to the studio in 2006 and, aided by producer Dave Fridmann, issued the energetic and direct When the Going Gets Dark. After Bolme joined the lineup and the band moved to Kill Rock Stars, their seventh album, American Gong, appeared in February 2010. Quasi reverted to a duo in 2011, then released the expansive eighth album Mole City in 2013. An informal hiatus followed, during which Coomes and Weiss pursued separate endeavors, until 2019, a month after Weiss departed Sleater-Kinney, when she suffered a severe car accident that fractured her collarbone and both legs. Still recovering at home when the COVID-19 pandemic halted touring possibilities, Weiss and Coomes began jamming sessions that helped restore her drumming technique. Those sessions led to new songwriting, and in April 2022 the pair embarked on a 27-date tour. They later booked five days at Robert Lang Studios in Shoreline, Washington, where they recorded Quasi’s first album in ten years. Breaking the Balls of History came out on Sub Pop in February 2023.