In an industry saturated by generic garbage and bands who repeat themselves because success is guaranteed regardless of quality, there are few true “artists” left. But if you dig deep enough, you’ll find them. Case in point: Corridor’s debut album Corridor/mdcccclxxxi.

http://www.portable-infinite.blogspot.com/

1 PIZZA! Pizza! Self-Released
2 BIPOLAR BEAR/TALBOT TAGORA Abstract Distractions olFactory
3 CHAIN AND THE GANG Down With Liberty... Up With Chains K
4 STRANGE BOYS And Girls Club In The Red
5 FUCKED UP No Epiphany [7-Inch] Matador
6 PASSIONISTAS/HARD PLACE Split [7 Inch] World Famous
7 DARKER MY LOVE/MOCCASIN Split
8 SO MANY WIZARDS* Ed Tree [EP] Self-Released
9 MUSLIMS Parasites/Walking With Jesus [7-Inch] I Hate Rock N Roll
10 BOBB BRUNO Dreamt On Vosotros
11 CONDO FUCKS Fuckbook Matador
12 WAVVES Wavvves Fat Possum
13 COATHANGERS Scramble Suicide Squeeze
14 WINDOW TWINS I'm This Tall City Howells Transmitter
15 BRAN FLAKES I Have Hands Illegal Art
16 JEREMY JAY Slow Dance K
17 NO BARBEQUE No Barbeque [12 Inch] SILTBREEZE
18 ODD NOSDAM This Is My Element Soundtrack Anticon
19 MI AMI Watersports Touch And Go
20 5 SIGNS Left Handed Acquisitions
21 AXEMEN Big Cheap Hotel
22 STARDEATH AND WHITE DWARFS 2 Tracks Warner Bros.
23 WHINES The Whines
24 SUNSET Loveshines II [7-Inch] Autobus
25 CORRIDOR Corridor* Manimal Vinyl / Kayak
26 HANDGLOPS Ronk Ng Rool Self-Released
27 KILL KILL KILL Vein, Nerve, Mesh Yab Yum
28 SWAN LAKE Enemy Mine Jagjaguwar
29 POLKA DOT DOT DOT Love Letter To New Zealand Bicycle
30 YES PLEASE For Now, For Then, For Them Bicycle

Sunday, Feb. 22

PLAN A: Grails, James Blackshaw, Joshua Emery Blatchley @ The Casbah. Grails’ blackened, Eastern-tinged excursions would probably make a good soundtrack to a reading of Dante’s Inferno. If you miss this, you’re going to hell. Actually, if you show up, you’re going to hell, too. PLAN B: Corridor, Vaginals, Alexandra Hope @ Ruby Room. Corridor is L.A.’s M. Quinn, a multi-instrumental looping wizard whose live cello playing should send tingles down the spines of even the most tortured goth kids. BACKUP PLAN: We Should Be Dead @ Soda Bar.

Corridor is the alias for multi-instrumentalist Michael Quinn's musical
project. The self-titled debut album features eight tracks of lush noise-
drenched stories of passion, disillusion and coming of age in the modern
world. Quinn himself, whom still in his early 20's is considered a seasoned
player in the post-hardcore scenes in Boston and Seattle. Eventually making
the move to the greater Los Angeles area, Corridor wasted no time getting
key slots on shows with Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Xu Xu Fang, Winter
Flowers and Rainbow Arabia, as well as packing up the cello, guitars, samplers
and keyboards in his old VW wagon and performing unforgettable live
shows at dives and art galleries across the USA.
Taking his influences from dark-wave Michael Gira's Swans, midieval English folk and gypsy-jazz master, Django Reinhart, he makes sounds that only few can dare to categorize.

Ambition can be a cruel bastard of a medium when creating a foundation for artistic expression. True, when executed correctly, or fulfillingly as one might say, the results not only reap satisfaction for the artist, but also for the recipients, no matter how few and far between they are.
M. Quinn (going by the moniker "Corridor", which in itself is one of the best words to relate to the music he has made) took all this into consideration as he constructed Corridor's first proper LP, "Redux Doze". Armed with his very own four limbs, pure talent and unwavering determination, Quinn set out to create an honest piece of sound, wholly centered around that said bastard, ambition.
To say the complete work is simply an achivement is almost insulting, once you've made it through the fifty plus minutes. It wasn't as if "Redux Doze" was created to prove wrong the legion of naysayers that feel modern music has nothing new or exciting to offer, but more to remind them (or at the very least make them reconsider) that at the very root, some artists still have ideas and avenues of exploration that can produce music that very much doesn't sound like most of the music you hear on a weekly or yearly basis.
Quiet, almost ambient sounds give way to carefully contstructed bodies of song that, at once bleed an electronic, psychedelic and darkened eye of a storm, leading into beautiful moments of serene and uplifting sweeps. Velvet vocals nestled carefully into tiny pockets of each track are, at first and second listen, perfect compliments to the intricacies of the respective songs. After a tenth or twentieth listen, the vocals become almost imperative, revealing "Redux Doze" as not a collection of songs, but a definitive body of work.
To make the effort perfectly clear, the entire LP was written and performed by one and singular M. Quinn. No guest spots, no overuse of studio trickery, just one man and his acoustic guitar, cello, drums, piano, synth and a healthy dose of digital and analog programming. Somehow, when it's all said and done, you've heard some of these instruments sound rarely as they are percieved to come across.
While one-man projects are in no way a rare breed, properly executed versions are quite dormant in the realm of modern music. Translating most of the work into a live atmosphere, consisting of solely the creator, proves more a hindrance than a blessing and, truth be told, most of them aren't up to the task. The confines of your own personal work space seem safer and easier than attempting to bring the music out and into the general public. This is one area, among many, where Corridor shines. M. Quinn has finely tuned his songs to an accessible point where, even in the questionable and tumultuous live setting, he is able to convey the songs created as more than a simple studio project. Spreading the stage with that acoustic guitar, cello, a legion of pedals and amps and one lone chair, he is able to put forth an effort and performance that many full bands would kill for. He is able to give "Redux Doze" it's proper due, which is to say that the LP is more than the simple one dimension of recorded output, it's a living breathing entity that can take the listener for more than just a simple ride as they press "play".
This is the record you play at five a.m., when all the pills start to wear off and you begin to see the sun rise in all it's glory, knowing full well your head won't lie still for at least another five hours. It's the record you listen to through headphones as you walk silently through a light speed city in the crisp autumn air, bringing forth the beauty and desperation of a modern, anonymous world in every visual exhale. This is the record that will remind you, legion of naysayers, that modern music is still vibrant and dark and haunting and intense and original.
"Redux Doze" is all of the above, and you have Corridor's M. Quinn to thank for that.