George Quartz

He certainly photographs well, if the several hundred snaps posted on his myspace are anything to go by.

Musically he's an inconsistent bugger: of the three tracks we've heard, instrumental lounge jam 'Butterscotch' is as sweet as its title would suggest, a sort of dinner-party Salem (in a good way), while 'Divorce Quartz Theme' is strung-out post-punk exotica that puts us in mind of Tuxedomoon, Broken English and The Marble Index. But yelpy disco track 'Pentagram'? Pretty insufferable, if truth be told.

One thing is clear though: George Quartz is going to be huge. I mean, let's face it - photographing well and having one song that sounds like a dinner-party Salem is more than enough to guarantee notoriety in the 2009/10 season. As if that's not enough, the Texas-dweller runs a disarmingly cool blog, La Maladie Tropicale, in which he posts clips of Eastern European cartoons, Kris Kristofferson fire-side singalongs and Dennis Hopper obscurities. He's a talented illustrator/designer himself, or perhaps more accurately a talented hacker and appropriator of other people's illustrations/designs, with a particular penchant for monochromed 70s sci-fi kitsch - as you can see in the pictures above and below.

Mates with FACT favourites Stereo Image, the mildly mysterious Quartz is currently working on new material with a band of five multi-instrumentalists who call themselves Personal Victories. "Right now I only have a few tracks," Quartz recently told Dazed, "But I'd have to say they sound like Muzak versions of TV show themes and arcade music being played in the elevator to the afterlife! It's a really artificial sound, but hopefully warm and alive as well – very synthetic, but also sincere and personal at the same time."

Johan Inverdale - Fact Magazine

Text by Sarah Fakray

George Quartz is not what you'd expect from a solo project based in Dallas, Texas; although he does seem to like taking his shirt off, and we didn't actually ask him whether he once voted for George Bush (just kidding, GQ). Quartz has kindly given Dazed Digital two tracks for you to download: the instrumental Butterscotch, a spongy and slow-grooving song that occasionally cuts in with a cold Italo synthline; and Pentagram, pulsating dark disco with urgent vocals chanting about a well-recognised five-sided shape. He's still getting his live set-up in order, but for now, he backs himself with a group of multi-instrumentalists who call themselves Personal Victories. Click on the song names to download or stream below.

Q&A
What's…
… your description of your sound?
Well, right now I only have a few tracks, but I'd have to say they sound like Muzak versions of TV show themes and arcade music being played in the elevator to the afterlife! It's a really artificial sound, but hopefully warm and alive as well – very synthetic, but also sincere and personal at the same time. It's a bit like giving someone a handful of those colourful but chalky little Valentine's candies, while actually meaning whatever little phrases are stamped on the front of each one.

… so special about you, then?
I'm imaginary and flesh and bone.

… your tip for 2009?
Don't be afraid to let go of the past – 2009 is the year for starting afresh. Don't hesitate to shed whatever you think your identity was supposed to be if it's not working for you.

… the story behind your name?
That one is a young man's coming-of-age story and is strictly reserved for pillow talk only. Sorry!

… your worst vice?
The internet. I fly into a panic every time my connection blinks out.

… your dream musical collaboration?
Eno.

… on your stereo?
Right now, Leonard Cohen's I'm Your Man, Fever Ray, and my homies Stereo Image and Jake Five.

… the best piece of advice you've heard?
"Never let them see you sweat."

… the one thing you’d kill for?
The perfect pair of trousers. They're as elusive as the Chimera.

… your vision of the future?
Have you ever been to a shopping mall really early in the morning, when all of the senior citizens are there in flamboyant wind suits, walking around in circles, beautifully blissed-out and burning off their IHOP carbs? That. - Dazed Digital

Friday, April 3, 2009 12:03 am
R.I.P. Balearic Disco

George Quartz is the auteur of La Maladie Tropicale, a blog of silvery grey matter etched onto a Grecian urn unearthed in the year 3000 from the rubble of a glass citadel under a starlit night sky.

“Butterscotch” is all oozing liquid gold poured across the most beautiful of alien women, its the tri-synthesis of Tuxedomoon’s dapper vagabond malevolence, the oily black sexed soul music of Michael McDonald & James Ingram and Berlin’s plane-crash femme-fatale after her cybernetic implants, all three elements forming into a neon outlined saxophonist who walks into the wind, down a dark NY alleyway in 1981 with Basquiat lurking in the shadows drawing him with grey paint and blood. - 20 Jazz Funk Greats

George Quartz received a nice little write-up in British bi-monthly magazine, Fact this week, and was even called a "Texan Lothario" in the publication's tweet on the article. Included in the rather detailed piece is an MP3, "Butterscotch," as well as some info about Quartz's always interesting blog, "La Maladie Tropicale," where he recently blogged about one of my all-time favorite films. Excellent work.






- We Shot JR

Faux Fox Frontman George Quartz Offers Up Three Free Solo Tracks
By Pete Freedman in MP3s, Music News, Video
Thursday, Apr. 2 2009 @ 3:34PM

Over on his La Maladie Tropicale blog, charismatic Faux Fox frontman George Quartz has offered up three solo tracks for download: an instrumental track called "Butterscotch"; a simple but catchy dance track called "Pentagram," and a short, somewhat bittersweet female-sung (don't know by whom, though) organ-synth jaunt called "Theme From 'Divorce Quartz'". They're slightly less rocking, and more simple in their synth-based ways. Either way, it could be worth your while to check these out, if only to keep tabs on this always-interesting (but often mystifying) crew of performers.
- Dallas Observer

You know of that talented gentleman George Quartz, well he’s got together with Personal Victories to deliver a cracking piece of tribal sturm and drang the likes of which we hadn’t heard since Excepter turned the stompbox on, acid concoction of industrial ghost dance poison injected into our hearts with a rusty seven inch long syringe straight off Herman Von Klempf leather pouch of kinky surgical devices.

Picture Indian Jewellery covering World Domination Enterprise’s Jah Jah Dub using Event Horizon’s Experimental Gravity Drive as a stage from which to project the blood red eclipse live and direct, bats wielding sharp knives in their curved claws fly from every bell fry. They are out to get you, fight back. - 20 Jazz Funk Greats