FourPlay Electric String Quartet

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

FourPlay Electric String Quartet is a four-piece rock band from Sydney, Australia, formed in 1995. It should not be confused with a smooth jazz group in the United States also known as Fourplay.

FourPlay's members include brothers Tim Hollo (violin and viola) and Peter Hollo (cello), Lara Goodridge (violin and vocals) and Shenzo Gregorio (viola); former members include: Veren Grigorov (viola) & Chris Emerson (viola). Although all members of FourPlay had formal classical training, the band play an eccentric form of rock music, with subtle influences from their Jewish heritage (3 of 4 of them are Jewish) (although FourPlay regard themselves as an Australian band above all else) as well as gypsy, pop, folk, hip-hop, electronica, post-rock, folktronica and many other forms.

1 History
2 Discography
3 External links

[edit] History

FourPlay's first album, Catgut Ya' Tongue? was released in 1998, and featured mostly covers (of bands including Metallica and Depeche Mode, and the theme from Doctor Who), along with a few original compositions. In late 1999, Emerson left and was replaced by Veren Grigorov. FourPlay released their second album, The Joy Of... in 2000, which included, among other things, a two-part dub/klezmer composition, a distortion-heavy cover of Pop Will Eat Itself's Ich Bin Ein Auslander, and a gypsy-style instrumental ending with a mass scream. This was followed, a year later (2001), by a 2-disc remix compilation, Digital Manipulation, featuring work by many Australian musicians, including Machine Translations, B(if)tek and Darrin Verhagen. FourPlay have also toured abroad extensively, and supported artists including george and The Whitlams.

In 2004, Grigorov was replaced by Shenton Gregory aka Shenzo Gregorio, renowned stunt violinist from Brisbane. Shenzo's personality and style meshed perfectly into FourPlay, and he took to the viola instantly. A highly fertile period of new composition resulted in many new originals, as well as covers of Radiohead, The Strokes, and various jazz/blues numbers. These were recorded in the latter half of 2005 and appear on Now To The Future, released in June 2006.