The Qualia to Release Memorial Gore EP on June 14th

May 2, 2011 - PRLog -- BROOKLYN, N.Y. (Apr. 29, 2011) - Tapping into the secret walls of fantasy we put up to protect ourselves from reality is Brooklyn's The Qualia, and they're doing it with disarmingly catchy electro-pop. The quartet, led by singer, guitarist and songwriter Lars Casteen, is bringing six tracks of hard hitting, character-driven "indietronica" (think more moody soundscapes and less ukuleles and bells) reminiscent of Cut Copy and New Order on their latest EP Memorial Gore. The EP is due out June 14th.

Both the band's name and the EP's title give clues as to Memorial Gore's main themes. "The philosophical concept of 'qualia' is the idea that there are intangible, indescribable experiences that a person has when they're experiencing things in the outside world," says Casteen. Couple that with his thoughts on the tiny sliver of park near his home in Williamsburg and you'll get the idea. "The title is Memorial Gore, and it is named after a small park just down the block from my apartment. I was just struck by the irony of this park that's meant to represent something as meaningful and personal as soldiers' deaths being represented by a fenced in triangle next to an auto repair garage.  I chose it partly because it was connected to my neighborhood so it felt present in my day-to-day life, and also because it's connected thematically to the issues of ambition and imagined grandeur that come up over and over again on the EP."

The people inhabiting the songs of Memorial Gore may all be deluding themselves in some way, but they all come from different walks of life. From Republican strategist Lee Atwater, on the melancholy Carter Family-style ballad "Fat on the Baby," whose tale of childhood tragedy reached beyond political differences to touch Casteen, to two adult siblings sharing a joint as an escape from their unpleasant stay with their extremely critical parents on the hooky, synth-driven "Guess I Lied." You'll also find an agoraphobic novelist ("Word Gets Around"), a misguided volcano jumper ("Volcanoe" (The Diogenes Club remix) and an increasingly ambitious man exulting in the parade he deserves less and less ("Triple Crown". On all of these tracks, Casteen strives to make an emotional connection to these characters. "I feel like my songs outwardly don't seem super-personal, but the biggest inspiration, since I'm going to be the person singing the songs, is always the emotional reaction that I have to the stories of people around me."

The Qualia are a hard-working band, constantly honing their songs and sounds to get down to the emotional core of each and convey that to audiences. Casteen begins the process of songwriting, "Basically, I start songs by trying to develop lyrical concepts, sounds, and melodies all at the same time to get an identity for a song that I can believe in and that expresses something that I feel is real." Then he brings the rest of the band in to make sure each song has some part of all the members and they build the songs layer by layer in the studio. It all comes down to putting in the work for The Qualia. Casteen sums it up, "I think you need to find a place where the process of doing what you do is the thing that you love in order to get to a place where you're saying anything that's distinctive or personal enough for it to mean anything to anyone."

Memorial Gore Track List

1 - "Guess I Lied"
2 - "Triple Crown"
3 - "Word Gets Around"
4 - "Keep It Coming"
5 - "Fat On The Baby"
6. - "Volcanoe (The Diogenes Club remix)"

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