Artist Detailed Info: Four Quartets

Four Quartets is the brain-child of 28 year-old, Bristol-born singer/songwriter Rob Sharples. Distilling a breadth of influences both musical and literary: from rock auteurs such as Radiohead and Elliott Smith, to the Beatles, the Beach Boys and the western classical tradition. Harmonically adventurous and unpredictable, Sharples seamlessly weaves memorable melodies with a complex undercurrent producing music of genuine art that stands up to high scrutiny and yet is also easily accessible.

A multi-instrumentalist, Sharples painstakingly writes every arrangement and also personally performs most of parts, bringing a distinctive character to the blend. Recorded on a shoe-string budget, the debut album The Paragon of Animals reflects a year's labour, beset by faulty equipment, the necessity to borrow mics and instruments, an outmoded iMac and self-taught engineering.

The result, however, is an intelligent and diverse offering, at times soft, spectral and sparse, at others abrasive and visceral, demonstrating a range of styles and textures, yet remaining cohesive and fluid. Lyrically, the songs reflect a profound but unpretentious love of literature that evokes a picture of a world both beautiful and brutal. Contemptuous of cliches but resisting mystification, an uncontrived humanity emerges from the core of this unique and luminous record.

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