* En anglais uniquement
Portland, Oregon-based indie pop duo
Quasi teamed singer/guitarist/keyboardist
Sam Coomes and drummer
Janet Weiss, who not only previously joined forces in the band Motorgoat but also married and divorced. After a 1993 split single with
Bugskull, little was heard from
Quasi until 1996, when the duo issued the Early Recordings collection. In 1997,
Weiss joined
Sleater-Kinney for their classic
Dig Me Out album, but she also continued collaborating with
Coomes, and that same year saw the release of the
Quasi album
R&B Transmogrification. Its 1998 follow-up,
Featuring "Birds", was among the year's most acclaimed independent outings, and in 1999
Quasi resurfaced with Field Studies. By the new millennium,
Weiss and
Coomes found a new label home with Touch & Go. The Sword of God appeared in 2001, marking
Quasi's sharpest material since their inception. Two years later, the band's snide sense of humor was found once more on the politics-heavy Hot Shit. In 2006, the band returned to the studio and, with the help of producer
Dave Fridmann, released the rollicking When the Going Gets Dark. After adding
Jicks bassist
Joanna Bolme to the lineup and moving to Kill Rock Stars, the group released its seventh album,
American Gong, in February of 2010.
Quasi returned to being a duo in 2011 before returning with their eighth album, the sprawling
Mole City, in 2013. ~ Jason Ankeny