The Qualia profile picture

The Qualia

Well-appointed songs for poorly appointed people.

About Me


Our debut CD, Nevada's Greatest! is now available in many places, including these fine online stores:

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 4/8/2006
Band Website: thequalia.com
Band Members: L. Casteen and collaborators.
Influences: Kraftwerk, New Order, Lyle Lovett, Johnny Cash, REM, Front 242, Ennio Morricone, Nick Cave, Suicide, Depeche Mode, Coil, Giorgio Moroder, Heavy Water Factory, Placebo, Beck, Einsturzende Neubauten, Curve, Autechre, Erasure, Nine Inch Nails, Gary Numan, Beach Boys, B-52's, Nitzer Ebb, Can, Neu, Elton John, David Bowie, Covenant, The Sound, Prince, Queen

If you need all the music you listen to fit perfectly into one category or another, this probably isn't for you.
Sounds Like: "Even without the cowboy metaphors, Nevada's Greatest! is an endlessly fascinating blend of pop influences, unpredictable and unexpected, yet somehow familiar at the same time."
- ReGen Magazine

"It also needs to be said that nearly every song on this album is a radio hit waiting to happen. There isn't a song that isn't incredibly catchy and unique in its own way. The lyrics and thought structures are all inventive as well as the overall atmosphere..."
- Heathen Harvest

"Talented and complicated textures are painted over with a second and third coat of sonic paint that produces a thick layer of synths, guitars, vocals, and beats. Lyrically it’s serious as it tackles prolific topics in the political and social arenas yet also explores robotic cowboys."
- Smother Magazine

"Many of the songs are evocative of "futuristic music" from the early 1980s, like Gary Numan, Kraftwerk, and Afrika Bambataa--yet they're still very fresh and the production is exquisitely modern. I can't recommend them highly enough."
- The Spacing Guild Guide to Good Music

"The music is fantastic, an eclectic mix somewhere between electro-pop and an Ennio Morricone score..."
- Jewelboxing.com

"Nevada's Greatest Man" - Top 10 song of 2006
- voltage
Record Label: WTII Records
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

Interview and more

Hey guys, I've got some points to make.  Behold: 1) There's a new interview up at ReGen Magazine.  Check it out. 2) The photoblog project is continuing on excellently. 3) We're constantly wo...
Posted by The Qualia on Mon, 17 Dec 2007 02:07:00 PST

Photoblog

If you noticed the weird posts that have been here for the past week, here's an explanation.  I've started doing a daily blog over at vox.com, and put the first few posts here just for a demonstr...
Posted by The Qualia on Thu, 24 May 2007 08:17:00 PST

A great shambling mutant, silent and serene.

  I heard "The Tracks of My Tears" on the radio yesterday.  I reacted differently this time.  I got the impression that throughout it, the singer is lying.  That the new girl he'...
Posted by The Qualia on Mon, 21 May 2007 08:52:00 PST

The Americans drew their pistols and booted their horses forward up the street.

It's a beautiful day today, and I'm sitting inside feeling bad.  I've been called stoic before, and it pisses me off.  Just because I have priorities and believe in what I'm doing, that do...
Posted by The Qualia on Sun, 20 May 2007 01:54:00 PST

All day small boys perched on the walls and watched them by shifts and pointed and jabbered.

I'm meeting a friend of mine that I haven't seen for a long time tonight.  I'm terrible in situations like this.  Late one winter I had a conversation on the phone with somebody who I hadn't...
Posted by The Qualia on Sat, 19 May 2007 03:13:00 PST

The houses were loopholed and parapeted and the air was filled with the fumes of arsenic.

When I lived in Queens, I had the sense of L.I.C. as this sort of under-developed, low-key place, with the mixed industrial/residential sort of zoning that defines a place like Williamsburg without t...
Posted by The Qualia on Fri, 18 May 2007 08:24:00 PST

Within the hour the wind cooled and drops of rain the size of grapeshot fell upon them...

I was drinking cheap red wine with friends last night.  The phrase "nuclear option" was said several times throughout the evening in the context of everyday issues. ...
Posted by The Qualia on Thu, 17 May 2007 08:09:00 PST

On that raw tablestone the flames of their balefire swirled and circled...

Even though the lights in this city all serve their obvious purpose, everything else about them is designed to evoke.  Some lights assure me that I'm sitting somewhere classy...
Posted by The Qualia on Wed, 16 May 2007 08:35:00 PST

Time Masters, my goodness!

Well, I'm so excited I'm just twitching like a bee in a bear trap.  Looks like Nevada's Greatest! is available now on itunes.  That means that you'll be able to enjoy the record that The Spa...
Posted by The Qualia on Wed, 02 May 2007 10:55:00 PST

Sprang has sprong

Everything's going swell.  The city's streets have transitioned from a bitter winter into an interminable lukewarm fog.  The subways have shed their chrysalis of acceptable lethargy and emer...
Posted by The Qualia on Fri, 06 Apr 2007 09:55:00 PST