Shark Quest is a band whose members hail from Chapel Hill and Durham, NC. Gods and Devils (2004) is their third album. Comprised of a virtual who's who of the local music scene over the last 10-15 years, the band draws on a myriad of styles, melding individual influences and talents, to create something that is definitively their own. Theirs is a music which transcends any "scene" or genre reference points. Dusty pop melds with elements of surf guitar, bluegrass, traditional folk, bossa nova, Sufi-western and neoclassical baroque to create a sound that is uniquely Shark Quest.

Instrumental music can always be an iffy proposition in the standard rock genre, but Shark Quest succeeds where others may fail simply because their stories emerge ripe and full of vigor without need of ponderous or limiting "words." The instruments themselves elegantly tell the tales through their deft interplay, expressing the joy, the sadness, the ecstasy and the trepidation that flows through all of us. Live or on record, Shark Quest create lilting, almost hypnotic flourishes that seem to carry the listener away on whatever flight of fancy the imagination can conjure.

It's almost as if the band is creating the soundtrack for the very personal film or narrative unfolding inside the listener's subconscious.

The songs on Gods and Devils grew out of a collaboration between Shark Quest and filmmakers Brett Ingram and Jim Havercamp. Ingram and Haverkamp had embarked upon a documentary project about the life and work of legendary underground clay animator Bruce Bickford. Hailing from the
Durham-Chapel Hill area themselves, the filmmakers approached Shark Quest about collaborating on a score for their feature-length documentary on Bickford entitled Monster Road.

Things got started in the summer and fall of 2002 when Shark Quest composed and performed a musical suite to accompany a screening of Bickford's animation shorts. From the success of that collaboration, Shark Quest went into the studio to re-arrange music from the screening to fit into the time allotments of the movie. They also composed new pieces and worked with instruments not used on their earlier albums such as piano, exotic percussion, analog synthesizers and various Indian instruments. In the end, it seems to have been a match made in heaven. The film turned out beautifully and has screened at more than 15 film festivals across the country and around the world, garnering awards at Slamdance, The Ann Arbor Film Festival, Independent Film Festival Of Boston, Sonoma Valley Film Festival, and The RiverRun International Film Festival.

Shark Quest's eclectic and quirky yet warm and engaging score was the perfect companion to the film's story and content. Seeing Bickford's clay-mation come to life accompanied by Shark Quest's music, one is convinced that the two were made for each other.

For Gods and Devils, Shark Quest went back into the studio once again, expanding and re-arranging many of the ideas and movements from the Monster Road score. Challenging themselves through new mediums, new styles of composition, and new instrumentation, the band rallied to the challenge. The results include mesmerizing flights of fancy, magical journeys in sound and what we are confident are the strongest and most eclectic Shark Quest recordings yet.


Shark Quest is:

Laird Dixon - acoustic and electric guitars
Chuck Johnson - acoustic and electric guitars, steel guitar
Chris Eubank - cello, acoustic and electric bass, keyboards
Groves Willer - drums, percussion, water bottle
Sara Bell - acoustic and electric guitar, mandolin, marimba, acoustic and electric piano

"Blontzo's Revenge" b/w "Pig River Minor" [7"] (Merge) 1997
"Sick Bird Tweed" on A Garden Place comp. [cd] (Yep Roc) 1998
Battle Of The Loons [cd] (Merge) 1998
"Dancing Tooth" on Oh, Merge comp. [cd] (Merge) 1999
Man On Stilts [cd] (Merge) 2000
"La La" on Survive & Advance Vol. 2 comp. (Merge) 2003
Gods & Devils - CD (Merge 2004)