Qualm have today released their new video and single titled ‘It takes not much to light the fuse on the powder keg, which we’ve built ourselves, just to avoid dealing with our own demons’, from their upcoming album ‘Let’s Find Those Parrots In The Clouds’, dropping October 23rd via Zinnober Records.
Qualm apparently looked at the concept of a nice, orderly song and decided it had suffered enough. ‘It takes not much to light the fuse on the powder keg, which we’ve built ourselves, just to avoid dealing with our own demons’ begins with the sort of restrained, intimate atmosphere that suggests everyone is about to behave themselves. Then the saxophones start circling each other, the drums begin quietly plotting something, and a synth line wanders into the room like it has absolutely no respect for personal boundaries. Before long, the whole thing starts slipping sideways, and thankfully Qualm has no interest in grabbing the steering wheel and correcting course.
What makes the accompanying video and track so compelling is the way Qualm embraces uncertainty without turning it into an excuse for musical self importance. Noise, minimalism, free improvisation and avant garde composition are all thrown into the same wonderfully unstable blender, but the result never feels like an academic exercise designed to frighten anyone who enjoys having a melody. The saxophones provide the real fireworks, darting between concentration and complete abandon while the drums and electronics keep shifting the floor underneath them. It is restless music, certainly, but it is also playful, which makes the chaos considerably more inviting than it has any right to be.
As a preview of Let’s Find Those Parrots In The Clouds, arriving October 23rd, this is a particularly effective introduction to what Qualm is cooking. The band does not seem interested in telling listeners exactly where the music is going, which is probably the point. Instead, they create a space where tension can build, dissolve, explode and occasionally remember that grooves are pretty fun too. ‘It takes not much to light the fuse…’ feels like four musicians deliberately poking at the edges of a musical powder keg just to see what happens. The smart move is to stop asking when it will explode and simply enjoy the increasingly strange noises coming from inside it.
About Qualm
Built around intertwined saxophones, the track begins as an intimate deep-listening chamber piece before gradually slipping into freer territory. A rising synth line cuts through playful, evasive drums, pushing the music into unexpected directions.
Noise, minimalism and contemporary composition collide with free improvisation and echoes of 20th-century European avant-garde. Another side of Qualm emerges: subtle, restless and constantly in motion, music that refuses to settle into one shape.
Founded by Philipp Hager in 2020, Qualm has never been a fixed-band concept. The project has appeared in different formations and formats, remaining deliberately open-ended and ready to branch out in new directions at any moment. Drawing from 1960s and 1970s free jazz, 1980s free funk, European improvisation and instant composition, Qualm treats collective improvisation not as a method, but as a place to explore.
For the debut album, Hager has assembled a formidable current lineup: Andrew Bernstein, saxophonist of critically acclaimed avant-rock group Horse Lords, alongside Hager himself on saxophone, Christian Büdel (ZEMENT) on drums, and Sebastian Dyrschka (DRNTTCKS) on electric bass and synthesizers. The collective has also collaborated with double bassist Stephan Goldbach (Trio Vier et al.) and numerous other musicians.
Recorded as a freely improvised one-day session, Let’s Find Those Parrots In The Clouds consists of four pieces suspended between explosive spontaneity and deep concentration. Swirling saxophones collide with pulsive, polyrhythmic drumming, while droning basslines and synthesizers create a shifting sonic ground beneath them.
The result moves freely between expressive free-blowing, dense collective interplay and introspective composition, music that can erupt without warning, dissolve into texture, or suddenly lock into a groove. It is uncompromising, playful and immersive: a sonic offering for open ears willing to dive deep.