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Stephen Ulrich and Big Lazy in The New Yorker
Stephen Ulrich - Film Noir Guitar in Vintage Guitar Magazine
Big Lazy, the elegantly gritty instrumental trio led by the extraordinary guitarist Stephen Ulrich…The band, which was formerly known as Lazy Boy and recently lost a long-running battle with the La-Z-Boy corporation over its name, plays stunningly beautiful music that evokes everything from truckers' romps to the haunting film scores of Bernard Hermann. The New Yorker
..The Big Apple crème de la crème: an instrumental trio that doesn't so much balance Jazz dexterity and rock aggression as stick 'em both in your ear. Right, they're suitable for soundtracks. But anybody who
wants to call them ambient better talk to me first...The smart soundtrack noir of their eponymous CD turns fierce- Tin Hat Trio with hard-hat brio, Tortoise in a bunker instead of a boite, Mingus by split decision over the Raybeats. They're very New York and perfect for a time so more-than-words-can-say.
Robert Christgau/Village Voice
The guitar universe has been inundated with all things “retro” for the past decade, but the all-instrumental trio Big Lazy gives it a fresh spin. Old-school twang meets gritty Hollywood-soundtrack music here, with guitarist Stephen Ulrich offering a slow, drawling style and fat vintage tones.
A jazz-trained player with side roots in blues, country and western, ’50s sci-fi, and early rock, Ulrich paints vivid soundscapes, as on the opener “Minor Problem.” He mixes reverby chords with sweet lap steel, conjuring up a seedy night in the tropics without using any words.
“Unswerving” drapes brooding slide licks over accordion and a hip-hop drumbeat – think of a cop-gone-bad movie starring Robert Mitchum or Kirk Douglas as the conflicted anti-hero. Ulrich gets his Dick Dale on in “Human Sacrifice,” cranking up the ’verb and overdrive to create edgy surf rock with bowed acoustic bass. In fact, every Big Lazy song seems to be its own movie soundtrack.
Ultimately, Ulrich’s blend of mid-century Americana, cinematic sweep, and a dash of the experimental is exciting and refreshing. In fact, this is some of the most titillating guitarmanship we’ve heard in a while.
Vintage Guitar Magazine
...The Big Apple crème de la crème: an instrumental trio that doesn't so much balance Jazz dexterity and rock aggression as stick 'em both in your ear. Right, they're suitable for soundtracks. But anybody who
wants to call them ambient better talk to me first...The smart soundtrack noir of their eponymous CD turns fierce- Tin Hat Trio with hard-hat brio, Tortoise in a bunker instead of a boite, Mingus by split decision over the Raybeats. They're very New York and perfect for a time so more-than-words-can-say.
Robert Christgau/Village Voice
“Avant twang, Americana noir, garage chamber music, whatever you’d like to label composer/guitarist Stephen Ulrich’s NYC-based trio Big Lazy (drummer Yuval Lion and bassist Andrew Hall), one thing is undeniable — the vibe is unforgettable.” Dusty Wright, Culture Catch
“This band has sonic gravitas… and deep, dark grooves. No lightweight stuff here, just the real sound of a band with chops, intelligence and a sense of humor.” Sara Willis, Maine Public Broadcasting Network (MPBN)
“Melding rootsy twang with a spooky, off-kilter, decidedly cinematic vibe…Don’t Cross Myrtle is a delightfully unsettling album full of the kind of moody instrumental music that inevitably sets the imagination to firing. What sort of unusual, compelling stories would you set to music like this? It’s an album that leaves you wanting to know.” Jason Warburg, The Daily Vault
“a collection of instrumental works that doesn’t serve as background music, but as something you need to listen and pay attention to from the first track to the last. …It’s also music that – dare I say it in this day and age – doesn’t require lyrics to tell that open-ended story.” Thomas Gerbasi, Examiner.Com
“Ulrich’s ringing, engaging tone blips, rolls and burbles over jazz, country, rock and pretty much whatever else you might imagine. One moment he’s Dick Dale, the next Pino Rucher (who handed most of Ennio Morricone’s guitar needs).The jazz assembly of the trio (Andrew Hall plays a lovely and fluid stand-up bass, and drummer Yuval Lion is no stranger to brushes) is one of the things that lends such a versatility to the sound. These three can create almost any sound and evoke just about any emotion..the breadth of ideas and sound within this collection of songs is wondrous.” Jon Worley, Aiding and Abetting
“dark, jazzy rhythms and fluid, yet fiery guitar work from leader Stephen Ulrich…The rhythm section from rock veterans drummer Yuval Lion and Andrew Hall provide a steady yet swinging back beat that leaves plenty of room for Ulrich to texture his songs with sounds that range from elements of Calypso, Blues and pre-Beatles Rock and Roll. The surf-rock inspired “Human Sacrifice” lives up to its name as Ulrich offers some his most impressive playing, soaked in distortion and blues-rock…Don’t Cross Myrtle is an ideal candidate for television soundtracks.” Matt Satterfield, Leading Us Absurd
No Depression features Big Lazy’s official video, “Avenue X” created by filmmaker Marco North here. “Finger-snapping music for beat poets and dark alleys.” Lisa Knight, No Depression
If Big Lazy has a claim to fame, it is the on screen gig playing the brooding soundtrack for Meldrick's wedding in Homicide. Back then the name was Lazy Boy - recliner execs forced a change, says guitarist Stephen Ulrich, "fearing mass confusion between the overstuffed chairs and spooky, evocative music." This cd offers more neosurf instrumentals with upright bass, drums, and Telecaster twang - just the thing for new-millennium nuptials. Wired
Onstage contextualization is provided by a weathered local trio called Big Lazy, and they're doing it without uttering a word in a live set more gripping than the Cachaito Lopez, Ass Ponys, and Joe Strummer shows I've caught over the previous week. The bare-skulled leader-guitarist contorts noisily and precisely, the double-jointed standup bassist plucks plenty and bows when it's called for, the black-garbed drummer bashes out one tricky beat after another. ...the smart soundtrack noir of their eponymous CD turns fierce--Tin Hat Trio with hard-hat brio, Tortoise in a bunker instead of a boîte, Mingus by split decision over the Raybeats. They're very New York, and perfect for a time so more-than-words-can-say. "Do we have some nerve or what?" asks guitarist Steve Ulrich of their Mingus cover. It's the third time he's opened his mouth, after "We played Tel Aviv back in the spring and they actually invited us back in October. Hah, hah, hah," and a sneak intro four songs in: "Let's hear it for New York," followed after the yells and whistles by, "This is called 'Just Plain Scared.'" Robert Christgau
…whatever you call Big Lazy's music it is Ulrich's guitar – with it's fat, low-register melodies and traces of blues and jazz - that define the band's sound. His playing on Big Lazy's self-produced Big Lazy (Tasankee) alternates between controlled cool and passionate recklessness. Imagine the lovechild of Link Wray and Bill Frisell and you're halfway to hearing Ulrich's Telecaster twanging in your head.
Guitar Player Magazine
One New York band with a knack for terror is the supple, vocalless guitar-bass-drums trio Big Lazy. On their eponymous CD they conjure dark streets where you can hear sirens wail and trucks rumble. Best track: "Just Plain Scared." They have a new one, too: New Everything.
Playboy Magazine
Given these days of boilerplate, prefab pop culture, it's pretty damn rare that you actually hear anything truly original. Thank the gods then for Big Lazy, an all-instrumental Brooklyn trio who, while influenced by the past, are in no way beholden to it. Combining Rain Dogs -era Tom Waits, bottom-heavy Link Wray grind, and a certain rockabilly savoir , this guitar-bass-drum trio raises a compellingly inventive racket. Daring,
noirish music ideal for the soundtrack to the film you wish Quentin Tarantino would make.
Creative Loafing Atlanta
Brooklyn trio Big Lazy -- known as Lazy Boy prior to objections by the manufacturers of the ubiquitous cozy recliner -- makes music that is literally and figuratively just across the river from Manhattan's downtown scene. Influenced by everyone from bohemian jazzbos the Lounge Lizards to sunny surf rockers the Ventures, this tight combo cooks up a cool instrumental sound that never implies that it's cooler than you are. Guitarist Stephen Ulrich's twanged, highly reverb-ed riffs steal the show, setting a beat-poet mood while carrying an infectious melody. The cagey groove and distorted guitar squawk of "Crooked," sounds like something Tom Waits wouldn't mind growling over, while the addictive, rockabilly romp "Princess Nicotine" could attract its share of Link Wray fans.
CMJ New Music Report
The NYC instrumental trio Big Lazy has provided music for television and movies, which should come as no surprise: its music has an atmospheric quality that lends itself to cinema. Simple in both instrumentation- guitar, stand-up bass, drums - and in structure, the songs on it's self-titled disc recall, Ennio Morricone or Pell Mell more than Tortoise, although that comparison has been made...
The Onion Chicago
It’s not enough to call the veteran local group Big Lazy virtuosic. True, the instrumental trio’s precise evocation of urban moods and tensions on its fourth album, Postcards from X, is done with wrist-flick assuredness. But anyone can practice themselves into slick competence; these guys tuck their magic into subtle details, as when guitarist Stephen Ulrich lets a melody go just slightly flat, or the audible slack that reverberates off stand-up bassist Paul Dugan’s strings. Of course, immense talent is required to charge so confidently through a version of tango king Astor Piazzolla’s “Pulsacion #4.” It’s Big Lazy’s ease with a range of emotions—peering up from NYC’s gutters and down from the city’s night sky—that makes its music right for jukeboxes in bars both divey and swank. Time Out New York
...an impressive bittersweet album called “Postcards from X.” Led by the elegant guitarist Stephen Ulrich, the band’s new material consists of dark songsfeaturing Ulrich’s reverb-and-tremelo drenched playing backed by junk-yard grooves from the rhythm section. The New Yorker
New York City's Big Lazy plays big, bulbous, rainy day music with a twang and a bang. The trio - comprised of bassist Paul Dugan, drummer Tamir Muskat and guitarist Stephen Ulrich - delivers wet, trembling instrumental pieces filled with reverberation, noire atmospherics and sneaky shifts in tempo and dynamics. Echoes of Tom Waits, Pell Mell, Morphine, and the Pixies can be heard on the band's new self titled
album. The swirling 11-tune collection shuffles effortlessly at a lazy but persistent pace from one junky
sonic lounge to the next. Ulrich's Fender guitar sound blankets the sultry and delicate bombast of the rhythm section. The cold, mathematically complex instrumental "post rock" of the Tortoise/Chicago scene and the frantic, mechanical electronic music phenomenon was the 1990's reaction to the hollow modern
alternative-rock radio of that decade. Big Lazy's organic music pulsates with emotion, despair, humor and life in reaction to all of it.. Flagpole Athens, GA
New York's Big Lazy has what might be considered "the knack", that deft musical awareness of themselves, a lengthy acquaintance and a cognizance of their place in the universe. A knack which allows them
to convey even the simplest of messages with the greatest of meaning. You need something tangible? Imagine Medeski, Martin and Wood as a surf-rock band doing soundtracks. Truth be told, that's only half of
it... Punchline Richmond VA
It's driving down the strip with windows down on a cold, rainy night with too much on your mind and no place to go. It's a mad dash to the club. It's Big Lazy, the twangy, sultry, smoky trio from Brooklyn.
Steve Ulrich's reverb dripping guitar, backed by throbbing and thrumming stand-up bass, and snare drum snapping maniacally, all add up to a loping blues soundtrack that just makes you feel hip...
The Washington Times
Big Lazy are musical visionaries. Their noiresque brand of instrumentals curl out a thick and second-hand smoky set that conjures WeeGee crime photo albums…Big Lazy's most recent, self titled release on the bands own Tasankee Records has 11 reverb-heavy tracks that evoke images of shady characters, wayward women, Link Wray-meets-Tom Waits-and-Morphine at an Eraserhead … It's a beautifully dark
soundtrack to downtown's sour romantic underbelly. The Advocate New Haven CT
Big Lazy make atmospheric music for nights spent drinking absinthe on the rocks and are by far the highlight of this (Reverend Horton Heat/Los Straight Jackets) bill...
The Spectator Chapel Hill, NC
Slinky, Smoky, Sexy, Slightly askew surf guitar. The sound of Big Lazy is anything but formulaic. Seamlessly stitching together noirish guitar, upright bass and drums, the Big Lazy boys don't need lyrics to
paint scenes of wee-hour walks through alleys, underground opium dens and men in fedoras up to no good.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Solid scratch 'n twang from the trio formerly known as Lazy Boy...eleven new reverb-soaked excursions... This slinks along with an insinuation of perpetual equinox, like a bordello scene minus dialogue, unfolding in a kind of emotional Alaska. "Skinless Boneless" twitches as the audio equivalent of 'Johnny Got His Guitar',
swaggering with paresis... "Just Plain Scared": wherein lassitude is finally fed enough rope to force a confession.... "Amnesia" is a dusty road & you are now entering a town called PSYCHIC TORTURE, where Jim Thompson is buying a round of drinks at the Whammy Bar & Grill...."Hero Turned Suspect" has all the languor of Coppertone, the licentious straps of a diamond bikini in free fall over a bed of
sand... Music for grifters, strangled with smoke and regret, encircling laughter's despair in rings of exorbitant truth. Exquisite. KFJC 89.7 FM Los Altos Hills, CA
No Surprise that Big Lazy has composed music for the TV show Homicide: the jazzy, tremolo-heavy, late-night instrumentals of the New York City trio recall spy movies, spaghetti westerns, surf music and David
Lynch soundtracks, all at once. Great sultry-bar background music, but you can listen close, too, for the pretty and gritty shifts that will keep the dancers minding their steps and William Holden watching his
back. Tonight at 10pm at The Beachland Ballroom.
Cleveland Free Times
On its self -titled debut album Big Lazy traverses several genres in the course of 11 songs. The player's chops are undeniable, allowing for lots of tasteful experimentation. Throughout the disc, the band
produces taut songs that pull in the listener without going too far into self indulgent displays of technical virtuosity, which they could easily pull off without breaking a sweat. With the good taste and restraint of Seasoned musicians, Big Lazy keeps it cool, playing low-key explorations that mix the sounds of Mark Ribot, Link Wray and even Tortoise, if that's possible. This show should appeal to jazz hipsters, rockers, and anyone with adventurous musical tastes.
Metro Pulse Knoxville TN
Big Lazy's self-titled new cd is still firmly planted in the aforementioned David Lynchland, they just explore it a little more than their previous cd. Tracks like Skinless Boneless and Amnesia have a dark and seedy yet strangely intoxicating strip club feel to them. And Influenza and Princess Nicotine make a perfect soundtrack for an insomnia-laden midnight road trip.
Austin Citysearch
On their latest recording, the members of Big Lazy are intuitive masters of letting pure sound form content. The moorish instrumentals of this New York trio fall left of center, somewhere between sultry lounge jazz and fractured surf pop. Although they owe obvious nods to a number of hip influences, Big Lazy's true sound is as unique as it gets. The only real comparison would be to Angelo Badalementi's quirky
David Lynch film soundtracks. Chattanooga TN Times