Quasi “Featuring Birds” 1998. Up Records. Limited edition colored vinyl (repress). Indie/experimental rock from Portland, Featuring Birds is Quasi’s third studio LP. We saw the duo open for Jon Spencer & the HITmakers this past April. Quasi are Sam Coones on keyboards, guitar and vocals and Janet Weiss on drums and vocals. Weiss is probably best known for her work with Sleater-Kinney from ’97 through 2019; she has also played with Bright Eyes, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, The Shins and the Sleater-Kinney side-project Wild Flag. Coones was in The Donner Party in the 80’s and also played bass for Heatmiser.

Featuring Birds is fairly mellow with lovely melodies backed by some buzzy guitar and sometimes wild keyboards. My top tracks are “I Never Want to See You Again,” the rocking and dissonant “Ape Self Prevails In Me Still,” the 60’s organ-forward garage rocker “I Give Up,” and the only Weiss-lead vocal’d “Tomorrow You’ll Hide.” A lot of the record is a little too indie-twee for my tastes (the ukulele-styled guitar ditty “Please Do” for instance, and “You Fucked Yourself” which, despite the title, is a jazzy piano little number). April isn’t that long ago but I feel like they played a much more dynamic show than Featuring Birds would indicate for their style.