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Acclaim for Darcy James Argue's Secret Society & Infernal Machines
• 2011 Grammy nominee: Best Jazz Large Ensemble Album
• 2011 DownBeat Critics' Poll: Rising Star, composer
• 2010 DownBeat Critics' Poll: Rising Star, Composer, Rising Star, Arranger & Rising Star, Big Band
• 2010 Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards: Large Ensemble of the Year and Up & Coming Artist of the Year
• 2010 JUNO Award nominee: Contemporary Jazz Album of the Year
• Best Debut, 2009 Village Voice Jazz Critics' Poll
• Album of the Year, El Intruso International Critics' Poll
• Included in over 100 Best-of-2009 lists, including lists in the New York Times, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, Paste, the Ottawa Citizen, and others.
* * *
"A wickedly intelligent dispatch from the fading border between orchestral jazz and post-rock and classical minimalism… radiates self-assurance, and an almost chilling steadiness of conviction."
— Nate Chinen, New York Times
* * * * "Infernal Machines is addictive not only for its architecture, but for its fetching way with color."
— Jim Macnie, DownBeat
"With their haunting compositions and imaginative experiments, Argue’s Secret Society might do for jazz what Radiohead did for rock — and poach some of its audience, too."
— Michael J. West, JazzTimes
"For a wholly original take on big band's past, present and future, look to Darcy James Argue."
— Seth Colter Walls, Newsweek
"It's maximalist music of impressive complexity and immense entertainment value, in your face and then in your head."
— Richard Gehr, Village Voice
"A nearly perfect creative synthesis between tradition and innovation."
— John Eyles, BBC.com
"Brimming with fresh ideas; elegant in its combination of disparate influences (from distorted electric guitar to magisterial wind-instrument arrangements to minimalist rhythms); and accomplished in execution."
— Larry Blumenfeld, Wall Street Journal
“Big band music like you’ve never heard… thoroughly immersed in modern sounds and sensibilities.”
— Andy Whitman, Paste
* * * * * "[A] seven-track marvel of imagination."
— David R. Adler, Time Out New York
* * * * "Combines the rhythmic insistence of late Gil Evans with the coloristic approach of Maria Schneider and Bob Brookmeyer."
— J.D. Considine, Globe and Mail
"Infernal Machines stands defiant, updating the big band tradition for the new millennium while presenting exciting possibilities for the future."
— Troy Collins, All About Jazz
"[A] wonderful combination of sounds, styles, moods and messages"
— Richard Kamins, Hartford Courant
"Infernal Machines, however, lives up to the buzz, featuring writing and performing that catapults Argue's group into the ranks of jazz's best contemporary large ensembles... masterfully blends thrilling, innovative rock elements with sounds that remind one that he's running a big band after all."
— Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen
"[T]his is a seriously great record, one of the finest examples of new jazz I’ve heard in the past decade, one of the finest big band records ever made, one of the finest jazz records I’ve truly ever heard."
— George Grella, The Big City
"Among the young turks, Darcy James Argue has the most heat."
— Trevor Hunter, NewMusicBox
"An exciting stylist with an abundance of ideas, Argue deserves his place alongside Schneider, Hollenbeck and other contemporary big band arrangers who are looking beyond traditional notions of what a large jazz orchestra should, and can, sound like."
— James Hale, Jazz Chronicles
"Like a rock band, the Secret Society delights in big, assertive ideas. Yet this rugged let-it-rip aesthetic is beefed up by a rich harmonic palette [...]. This is fresh and non-derivative work, and justifies the intense buzz surrounding this bandleader's debut release."
— Ted Gioia, Jazz.com
"A big, broad musical vocabulary came together easily, without jump-cutting or wrenching shifts of style."
— Ben Ratliff, New York Times
"One of the leading new big bands in jazz."
— Martin Johnson, Wall Street Journal
"Argue uses what many think of as an antiquated form -- the jazz big band -- to create exuberant, emotionally charged, sprawling modern music."
— Joan Anderman, Boston Globe
"Clearly some of the most ambitious and compelling sounds I’ve ever encountered in the past 40 years."
— Juan Rodriguez, Montreal Gazette
"Argue draws on the full spectrum of modern rock, jazz and classical music."
— Hank Shteamer, Time Out New York
"After the encores and standing ovation from an audience of some 2500 at Moers had subsided, there seemed little doubt among those present that a major young talent in jazz had arrived."
— Stuart Nicholson, jazz.com
"When you listen to the music you are transported to a sinister yet beautiful world, a past that never was."
— Magpie Killjoy, Steampunk Magazine
"Inspiring."
— Ethan Iverson, pianist, The Bad Plus
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