Quilt - Plaza

The four members that make up Boston’s Quilt have always been an collaborative bunch. Across their first two albums, Anna Fox Rochinski, Shane Butler, John Andrews and Keven Lareau moulded themselves into an undefinable group, thoroughly influenced by the improvisational scene that grew from within their city in the last decade. Now with their third record, ‘Plaza’, Quilt have filtered their idiosyncratic tendencies into a melting pot of alternative-pop, with considerably prosperous effect.

‘Plaza’ is a culmination of the group’s various penchants, whether the glorious orchestral folk-pop demonstrated on lead single ‘Eliot St’ or the immediately following jazzy-stomp of ‘Hissing My Plea’, there’s a lot to break down across the record’s forty minutes. Their expansive arrangements are fluid and remarkably seem uncomplicated, ‘O Connor’s Barn’ meshing angular guitar lines into a glossy, smooth composition and ‘Roller’, with unsettled guitars, thrives under it’s pop sheen.

Quilt don’t allow themselves to settle on a singular notion, unafraid to change paths right in the middle of exploring another. “How can we have autonomy, if we can’t even leave” Anna sings softly through ‘O’ Connor’s Barn’, suitably encompassing the primary theme of the record - finding freedom from control and being unafraid to divert from a constricting, linear approach.