Ween :: “Quebec” - Sanctuary Records
“Quebec,” the eighth studio album from the New Hope, Pennsylvania-based outfit of crazed consciousness and poetically playful paralysis, Ween, is perhaps a sonically safe and irresistibly important start whether you are a newcomer or a seasoned veteran among the group’s consistently chaotic catalog of harmonious humor and fabulously fun fits of freakout fusion. An epic return to their indie roots on Sanctuary Records, Ween had been in a contract with Elektra, and with typical expectations and performance pressure from a major label, the group had finally landed back down on earth to begin working on perhaps their most painful and poetically personal material to date. A collection of works that reflected drug abuse, deterioration of relationships, transformative tragedies, and emotional escapism, Ween were entering not only a new phase in their long and winding career but in life, roots were being pulled and transplanted in the most bizarre and mentally majestic locations one could only imagine. “Quebec” stands as this mistifying watermark in the band’s career, and though it didn’t ring the bell from hell like past works such as “God Ween Satan - The Oneness,” "The Pod,” “Chocolate and Cheese,” and “White Pepper," the album still reflects their ultimate embodiment of the atmospheric Avant-garde we all know and love and expect from an outfit completely possessed with psychedelic personality and an eagerness to explore the narrative of total nuclear fallout.
“Our vision is like this rainy, colder than Paris, Parisian place. The vibe of our record is like romantic and rainy without being as classy as Paris. That was why we called it Quebec, it’s like this B-version of Leonard Cohen.”
Sonically shedding the sister skin of past, present, and future in this surreal attempt to access the switchblade soul, the dynamic duo of Gene and Dean transcends the iconic impact of Lennon/McCartney and Batman/Robin in a way that sincerely showcases their harmony and heroic abilities to explore and express elements of distress and downright existential bliss throughout the album’s 15 tracks of sonic sorcery, slapstick satire and sensational substance. Both harmoniously hypnotizing and atmospherically antagonizing, “Quebec” stands as this multi-dimensional diary entry from the cosmically contemporary pair while simultaneously holding its place as some of the group’s most compellingly complex and cherished work to this day. With numbers like “Chocolate Town,” “The Argus,” “Transdermal Celebration,” which Dean managed to capture on a hard disk in under ten minutes while using Carlos Santana’s equipment, ‘illegally,’ and the album’s magnum opus “Tired and True,” Ween poetically punctures the ‘indie rock’ bubble sending their lysergic lunatic legacy into the strung-out stratosphere like nothing they’ve released before or even since.
A total eclipse of esoteric proportions, the group’s anatomical ability to manifest the musical structures and elements found on the album was appreciated and seemingly accepted during its conception well over two decades ago, but what about now? Holding down this identity of remaining a pure institution for musical madness and murderous mysticism for certain groups starting on major labels is one thing, but making that potentially hazardous transition in later years can be detrimental or even lethal in certain aspects and settings, so think of “Quebec” as this iconically isolated moment in time and space where the group faces themselves in a way that most artists never have the opportunity to say on an album, let alone express in a way that is so moving and abstractly absurd that reflects the true nature and reality of one of the greatest duos in the last three decades to achieve such artistic accuracy.
