The Quilz “Are You Still Out Tonight?” split 7″ with Xposed 4Heads “Ultra Cloud” 2020. Milwaukee synthpop /new wave retro 80’s mash up: each band performs their original track along with a remix/redo of the other’s song. We caught The Quilz last weekend at our neighborhood park’s annual Pumpkin Pavilion, where they performed an electric selection of spooky – but danceable! – Halloween-adjacent songs.

The Quilz’s “Are You Still Out Tonight?” is electro-dream pop, shimmery bright with a few dark-edged touches and nods to the early 80’s Euro-synthpop sound. The Xposed 4Heads version of the track has a driving beat and bass background, making it way less dreamy and much more urgent, but keeps the synthpop vibe. Xposed 4Heads are heavily influenced by Devo so their “Ultra Cloud” absolutely has that keyboard/guitar 80’s dancey space geek mood. The Quliz’s remix sounds pretty similar to the original, with maybe a bit more emphasis on the bleep-bloop synths plus an intro that maybe had some Duran nods (always a good thing). Both bands are fun to see live – I don’t remember if they’ve done a joint show but it would be a good one.

While neither of these songs is on this video, here’s a bit of The Quilz performance from last week filmed by man-about-Milwaukee Juan: