Sweet vinyl outing from yet another Adam Kriney project. Kriney's got more energy than ten bands combined, and his dedication to his vision is unbounded. Luckily, he never seems to repeat himself or run out of great new ideas. This time out it's a quartet, featuring the astounding Minni Morgia on guitar, Kriney on drums, Chris Welcome on cello, and upright bass from Jordon Schranz. Being more familiar with his rock/prog/psych outfit La Otracina and some of his jazz work, this is my first exposure to Quivers. The group achieves a superb level of cohesion here, reaching an elusive state of morphing collective sound in which particular instrumental contributions are subsumed into a much greater whole. Kriney is slightly more restrained than usual, yet manages to show off his chops in fine style. Welcome's cello playing is a joy here, working together with Morgia to take the string scrape to new levels of insanity. And Morgia - what to say? He's easily one of the most underrated noise/improv guitarists around, and he's an essential piece to the Quivers puzzle. Displaying shards of Sharrock, glimpses of Joe Morris, nods to Haino, and plenty of his own thing entirely, Morgia is the one to watch. And yet his playing never takes on an ego-driven role, instead working for the service of the group sound. This is a sprawling and beautiful record on almost all counts. There are moments where you'll think it's a much larger group, or that Welcome's cello is actually a flute (!). The range of ideas present here, the obvious joy in the playing, and the alechemical mystery of the groupthink is superb. This one takes plenty of ESP inspiration, the spacious innovation and ghostly dronescapes of a group like Graveyards, and marries them to rock and noise with total success. The only potential limitation is sonic - Schranz's bass is too low in much of the mix, and the overall impact of the sound is a bit lessened. That said limitation doesn't ruin the record is remarkable. It's just that what he does play seems excellent, and with a better mix, this would have been a total knockout. Still, don't let that stop you - if you dig free jazz, noise, and all the potential intersections between, find yourself a copy of this record immediately. There's a lot of awfully tired moves in the free jazz scene these days, and Quivers avoid them all with skill to spare, offering up a platter that's both inventive and highly compelling. And let's hope Kriney keeps this unit together - I can only imagine the levels to which they're capable of taking this. 9/10 -- Eric Hardiman (17 September, 2009)