(Post Rock / Drone / Shoegaze) Thisquietarmy — Blackhaunter / 2008, FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

01. Black Haunters (8:33)
02. In The Breathing Forest (5:15)
03. Vampyr (6:18)
04. Taming The Beast (8:59)
05. Hunting Demons (7:54)
06. Stranger Than The Sea (4:01)

Thisquietarmy is the solo project of Eric Quach of Montreal's instrumental rock band Destroyalldreamers, which he founded in 2002. The initial creative output of the band was mostly his own compositions, completed with the band. As a result, their first album "À Coeur Léger Sommeil Sanglant" was released on Montreal's label Where Are My Records in 2004, becoming an international cult landmark for the post-shoegaze/post-rock genre. In 2005, he led the band's production in terms recording and mixing for the release of the "Glare/Halo" 12" EP on the American label Claire's Echo in 2006, as well as for the 2nd full-length album "Wish I Was All Flames" on Where Are My Records, released in the fall of 2007.
His parallel journey as Thisquietarmy began in 2005 when his creative needs were exceeding beyond the limitation of his band. While discovering the in-studio creative process with Destroyalldreamers, Thisquietarmy would start its sonic exploration through the guitar beyond frigid song structures and instrument boundaries, with the use of real-time loopers & an amalgam of effect processors, blending textures over textures, merging different sounds together and discovering faint and complex melodies in a beautiful sea of noise. Concrete ideas are often generated by the re-interpretation, the decomposition and the reconstruction of its own sonic improvisations. In studio, textures are sometimes captured on the moment and details are added around them to turn them into proper music pieces.
"Wintersleeper" was the first documented result of this exercise, an EP released on its own imprint This Quiet Army Records in December 2005. The creation of the label has led to a long-distance collaboration project by post mail with drone-master Aidan Baker (Nadja), releasing together an EP called "Orange" in 2006, which has sold out very quickly. The 2nd EP "Echotone" was released on Chat Blanc Records (Canada) in July 2007, as well as several compilation outputs on international labels Silber Records (USA) and Dreamland Recordings (Australia).
Thisquietarmy performs live regularly since 2007, mostly in Montreal but in also around Canada & USA with the likes of Ulrich Schnauss, Tim Hecker, Caspian, Olafur Arnalds, just to mention a few. Except for the occasional programmed beat, not much is pre-recorded as everything is done live on the fly. Armed with no less than three loop-samplers, a dozen of pedals, dual-mono signals, as well as dark & ghostly visual projections, Thisquietarmy's live material can be as structured as it can be improvised on the spot, depending on the moment's vibe.
These live shows have led to the recording of the new material in his home studio, and re-arranging them as proper songs for its full-length debut album "Unconquered", released worldwide through Poland's Foreshadow Music in April 2008 to critical acclaim. The album features styles ranging from drone/ambient to fuzzy 80s/90s shoegaze, engaging post-rock delicacies to soundtracks for world-ending agony, with guest vocals by long-time friend Meryem Yildiz & guitar by Aidan Baker on one track.
The sophomore album "Blackhaunter" will already be released before the end of the year 2008 through USA's label Elevation Recordings, as well as "Transmissions To 3774379 258421 13S", a 3rd EP as the soundtrack to a VLA photo book by Boston-based photographer Christy Romanick, to be released on her Space30a imprint. A full-length collaborative album with Aidan Baker is on its way to be released as well. Thisquietarmy's music was also used in the whole short-film "The Hitman" by Andrew Krajewski, which was presented at the Fantasia Film Festival 2008.