Following the release of her latest album ’The Cartographer’ last year and European tours with Wardruna, Emma Ruth Rundle and Amenra, internationally acclaimed composer and virtuoso cellist – not to mention Aural Aggravation favourite – Jo Quail has announced her first ever headline UK tour for May this year.
Jo comments: “I am so excited to announce that in May I’ll be playing some headline concerts for you! We’ve got some absolutely beautiful venues in here. I’ll be playing a much longer set then most of you will have seen, I’ll bring both cellos, and the thing that excites me the most is the thought of playing some brand new music to you, seeing what you think, letting the pieces take their shape and form in your company. Tickets are now live, it would mean the world to me to have you with me on my first ever headline tour.
I feel a bit emotional truth be told. I’m here because you’ve been with me from the early days, or perhaps we’ve met only recently, but you’ve all stayed, you’ve shared your stories, you’ve been part of all things, and I know this, and I thank you with my whole heart. All blessings to you all my friends.”
Jo Quail – UK Tour dates:
08TH MAY – Southampton, Suburbia
09TH MAY – Bristol, The Gryphon – SOLD OUT
10TH MAY – Nottingham, The Bodega
11TH May – Colchester, Art Centre
12TH MAY – Leeds, Seven Arts
13TH MAY – Manchester, White Hotel
14TH MAY – Glasgow, The Hug and Pint
Jo is also set to perform at London’s Desert Fest on 7th May.
It’s strange but quite welcome to be seated. It’s been a while, after all, but: rather than serving as a reminder of those awkward inter-lockdown seated gigs from this time two years ago, it’s another example of The Brudenell doing a great job – the sold-out show has nicely-spaced rows and ‘capacity’ is fifty per cent of the norm, and the aircon makes for a comfortable environment compared to the thirty-degree heat outside – in which to watch two remarkably accomplished artists perform intimate sets.
On arrival onstage, Jo Quail announces that she’s made a late adjustment to her set – which proves to be completely different from the previous night’s – and opens with the sparse, brooding ‘Vigil’, which is almost folksy in its dark, mournful feel. The lighting, too is sparse, a handful of red and white spots provide limited illumination.
Jo seems relaxed and is chatty between pieces, and the low-key setting suits her set, and her ability to build layers of sound to immense cathedrals with crushing chords is breathtaking. ‘Between Two Waves’ is spectacular, and the four-piece set closes with ‘Mandrel Cantus’. She’s taking a gamble and forewarns that there will be a ‘shredding guitar solo’ if she’s feeling brave enough. With thunderous percussion, booming bass, weeping strings – all wrung from the cello – it’s a climactic finale that builds dramatically to conclude an exhilarating set – one that feels a little less full-on, but every bit as affecting as her more ‘rock’ sounding shows.
“My name is Emma and I’m going to play some music for you”. It’s a humble introduction before she says she’s going to play her new album, Engine of Hell, which is what she then does.
The album marked something of a departure, and emerged from a period of quiet reflection and detox, and being an intimate work, it was fitting that the attendant tour recreated that intimacy. The lighting is even more stark, more low-key, and she sings and plays quietly almost as if to herself, but the hush, combined with the mic placement and amplification mean you can hear her breathe, the stage and piano stool creak.
In many respects, Emma seems younger than her 38 years: she’s reserved, nervous-seeming despite her experience. But some artists simply never fully take to the stage.
She has a remarkable voice, varied, emotionally rich. She’s not so much of a talker, but a sense of self-effacing humour shines through nevertheless, as she announces the lugubrious acoustic song ‘The Company’ as “another uplifting song” She also reminisces about previous visits as far back as 2008 with Red Sparowes and the last time she toured with Jo, which saw the pair of them play the ‘other room’ at The Brudenell – which was, I can vouch, outstanding. Ah, 2019, with the tempestuous force of Dystopian Future Movies opening. It feels like a lifetime ago.
Jo joins Emma on stage for ‘Citadel’ and their chemistry is immediately apparent before a note is played – they chatter and Emma seems immediately more at ease on an evening she often complains of feeling a bit strange. It’s not quite clear exactly where her head is at, but then, we don’t need to know. Some nights, something just happens. But she plays on, and plays beautifully.
Having established that the encore is dead (and she’s right: it’s a construct so false it’s wince-worthy. Play all the songs or don’t), she plays just one further song from her back catalogue without leaving the stage "so we can all get up and go outside together". It’s a spellbinding rendition of ‘Marked for Death’, and she exists the stage almost hesitantly after exactly an hour.
With a performance this emotionally abrim, it’s the perfect set length, and even if I didn’t have a train to catch, the 10:30 finish is welcome. Less is definitely more, but especially with music this intense.
Born of the long dark winters of Norway Årabrot was too black for metal and too avant-garde for punk so it forged its own path. Hewn from empty roads and the cold impenetrable depths of the fiords of its home.
A Norwegian Gothic, tales sung and stories told in screams and whispers. With its steel guitar, a steely gaze a sneer and a Stetson, Årabrot is the bastard offspring of Billie Holiday and Elmore James. It is The Velvet Underground if Johnny Cash was a member and Nico was able to sing. It is Camus, Sartre, Poe and Burroughs cut-up and regurgitated in an unholy erotic mass. It is all the great bands you haven’t even heard of. It is you. It is here it is now and there are other bodies to bury. Årabrot is not fucking around.
Årabrot is Kjetil “Tall Man” Nernes and Karin “Dark Diva” Park. They live in the Swedish countryside with their two children in the old church that they own. Rock’n roll is their religion.
Discussing the new video for ‘Kinks of the Heart’, Kjetil comments, “’Kinks Of The Heart’ and ‘Hailstones For Rain’ is one narrative in two parts. It is the tale of Årabrot, preachers of rock’n roll. The videos are shot in the church where we live and its surroundings, our neighbours and friends as the congregation. Karin is 8 months pregnant. If you want to know what Årabrot is all about this is where you want to start. Brilliantly directed by Thomas Knights and Kassandra Powell of Obscure Film Collective.”
Watch the video here:
AA
Årabrot’s 9th full-length album Norwegian Gothic sees the band collaborate with Lars Horntveth (Jaga Jazzist), cellist Jo Quail, Tomas Järmyr (Motorpsycho), Anders Møller (Turbonegro, Ulver) and Massimo Pupillo (Zu).
A stellar production by Jaime Gomez Arellano (Black Eyed Peas, Paradise Lost, Hexvessel, Oranssi Pazusu) makes this the quintessential Årabrot record. Commenting on latest single ‘Kinks of the Heart’, Kjetil adds,
‘There is a certain beauty to living in the countryside- there’s clear crisp air, fresh water, splendid sunsets. Every day we see wild animals coming down from the forests that surround us. There is a freedom attached to all that. The other day I went out of the church where we live and found a dead crow on the porch. It was only the head, its eyes gorged out and it had a huge claw stuck in its neck. There is also a brutality to nature which is ever-present out here. It is this duality Cormac McCarthy so masterly puts into words. It is also what Kinks Of The Heart is about.’
While the 20 years history of the band is a story of change and correlation, it would be too simple to
break this creative duality down to the stereotypical dichotomy of the yin and the yang… and if one attempted to do so, it would turn out to be quite difficult to determine which of these forces would be represented by which individual.
A chubby child from a Christian family, growing up in a small Swedish village and years spent in a Missionary school in Japan made Karin desperate to break away from narrow thinking. And she used her only advantages to do so; her unique voice and personality. By the age 15 she had moved away from home to find her place in music After studying at Stockholm Music Conservatory, a Norwegian poet took her to Norway where she started her pop career, this was followed by a move to London to write songs, and working as a model.
After five albums, a few Grammy’s, writing a Eurovision entry for Norway and hits for other artists and performances with Lana Del Rey and David Bowie, Karin returned to the village of her youth and bought the church where she first sang in front of an audience as a child. She turned the church into where they rehearse and record, surrounded by pianos, organs and hundreds of old bibles that the church left behind when the congregation stopped.
The clerical environment has proven to be an excellent creative tapestry for a band whose lyrical focus orbits around sex, death and defiance.
Kjetil Nernes was diagnosed with malignant throat cancer in 2014, in the middle of a tour. Instead of heading in for surgery right away, the band finished a full European tour first, "Every night of that tour was like the last show ever“, Nernes comments, "It was really strange. When a doctor calls and says, ‘you’re terribly sick’, it’s surreal. You go into this phase where life is more vivid and more real, in a weird way. We’ve done so many shows through the years and sometimes it’s a little like going to the factory to do a job. But with an axe hanging over your head you perceive the world differently.“
But the axe did not fall, and after successfully recovering from cancer, Årabrot are now stronger than ever.
The band has collaborated with procuders like Billy Anderson and Steve Albini, and musicians like Ted Parsons (Killing Joke/Swans), Sunn O))))’s Stephen O’Malley, and Kvelertak’s Erlend Hjelvik. They have composed music for silent movies like “Die Niebelungen” and “Doctor Caligari”, and have teamed up with The Quietus founder John Doran on his spoken word tour. Their album “The Gospel” was named “Album of the Year” by The Quietus.
Norwegian Gothic is released 9th April (Pelagic Records).
AdderStone Records, the label started by internationally acclaimed composer and virtuoso cellist Jo Quail, have announced the deluxe vinyl reissue of her 2016 album ‘Five Incantations’ on 20th November. Jo comments,
‘With the original CD format being sold out for a few years, I am delighted to be able to now present to you a very special edition of Five Incantations, this time as a beautiful double vinyl with two colour variants to choose from. The detailed sleeve and inserts feature photography by Ake Tireland, and includes a special bonus track of ‘The Breathing Hand’ recorded live with the choir of Cappella Gedanensis and Alicja Lach-Owsiany (cello) in Gdansk. The lyrics of this track are written by Mohan Rana, as a direct response to the original piece of music, and are included in the sleeve in Hindi, English and Polish.’
The origins of the album began to emerge in the spring of 2015 during Jo’s fourth tour of Australia where she felt especially connected at that time to a vital or spiritual source, opening her mind to wonder from both a personal and archetypal understanding. Jo adds,
‘Whether practically this was due to an intense focus on music minus the day to day existence, the remoteness of being a mum away from my family, or myriad other reasons I cannot guess, but I felt swept away by this sensation and immediately began to write what became ‘Five Incantations’. The album is a suite of interlinked movements, each individual yet essentially drawn from one theme. It has been recorded and will be performed at 432hz. Each movement describes a personal reflection on one of the four cardinal points, with the fifth aspect being Spirit.’
‘Five Incantations’ is the 2nd release on AdderStone Records which was originally set up in 2019 with the initial aim of reissuing Jo’s back catalogue on vinyl. The first being a release of her 2018 album ‘Exsolve’ which led to Jo picking up the Limelight Award at the Progressive Music Awards last year.
Over the past few years Jo has been touring extensively across Europe performing alongside the likes of Boris, Emma Ruth Rundle, Amenra, Caspian, God is an Astronaut, Myrkur, MONO, Årabrot, Battles and Winterfylleth. Festival performances include ArcTanGent, WGT, Dunk!, Tramlines Festival, Handmade Festival, Hellfest and Damnation and two separate concerts at the invitation of Robert Smith for his curation of the Southbank’s Meltdown Festival.
To support the release Jo Quail will perform an exclusive limited capacity live streamed show from The Black Heart on Hotel Radio’s Pay-Per-View platform on 19th November. More info and tickets are available here:
Internationally acclaimed composer and virtuoso cellist Jo Quail has today released, ‘The Parodos Cairn’ to raise money for the ‘Save Our Venues’ crowd funder. This new composition is comprised entirely of 167 audio samples sent to her over the first few weeks of lockdown during the Covid-19 crisis. Jo comments,
‘I was of course disappointed following the necessary and inevitable cancellation and postponement of all concerts and tours, but primarily I felt an overwhelming urge to somehow connect with you in this time, to still symbolically meet with you and though without a concert hall and stage I felt sure we could still somehow unite, and create an inclusive, unifying experience.
I posted a video on social media outlining these thoughts and suggesting people record a note or a sound, then send these to me, and from these I would create a piece of music. I suggested using phones to record, as I wanted to make this creative outlet available to everybody, musician or not, with or without a recording facility. At the outset of this project I envisaged receiving perhaps 10 or 20 contributions, writing a piece of music for solo cello and then incorporating within this piece whatever samples I received. The incredible take up and enthusiasm from my initial video request meant I had to rethink my strategy! I never foresaw this reaction – I received all kinds of contributions, far beyond my expectations. We in fact have 124 musical contributors sending 167 samples, from 24 countries across the world – everything from operatic soprano to shamans, pianos, printers, table thumps, singing bowls, amazing overdrives, percussion, hiphop beats, cows, guitars, flutes, rattling keys, recorders, dulcimers, strings, and the list goes on!’
Watch the video now for ‘The Parodos Cairn’, directed and produced by Dorian Robinson, incorporating photographic and video contributions generously donated to the cause:
The follow up to 2017’s Time finds the emotive avant-rock guitar quartet moving further into cinematic territory while exploring an expanding range of forms. Everything contained in their previous releases is very much present on the seven songs that make up Inviolate, only so much more in every sense. Everything about Inviolate is bigger, bolder, more pronounced and yet more nuanced, shaper and more keenly felt and articulated. And every corner of the album is imbued with a sense of enormity, both sonic and emotional: Inviolate feels major-scale, from the driving riffs to the heartfelt human intensity.
‘Countenance’, which has been a standout of their recent live sets, kick-starts the album with a short blast of overdriven guitar that hits like a punch in the mouth, before immediately pulling back into a soft, post-rock chime. And so it goes: rapidly alternating between tempestuous bursts of gut-busting overdrive propelled by thunderous percussion and lacework of heart-rending delicacy. Chopping back and forth, it’s almost schizophrenic, and it’s impossible to settle into, and instead, the listener is drawn into an emotional maelstrom articulated through the medium of sound.
Things get darkly hypnotic on the slow-burning ‘Wreckage’, the guitars wrap serpentine around a slow-twisting bass with alternating hypnotism and jarring angularity, and it’s only near the end that the tension breaks in a searing blast of twisted chords, and then they go spiralling off into a jolting sonic cataclysm, it’s with some heavy prog leanings that call to mind early Oceansize. Meanwhile ‘Rules’ is a slow, spaced-out affair that crashes somewhere between shoegaze and grunge. Indeed, placing Dystopian Future Movies in terms of genre is nigh on impossible: the landslide guitar assaults aren’t remotely sludgy, and so they’re leagues away from the stone/doom vogue, and the softer, interweaving passages and crescendos aren’t twee post-rock or even post-metal, although they exploit the quiet / loud dynamics of grunge and the sustained crescendos characteristic of post-rock. And yet I’m reminded fleetingly of a number of bands – all lesser-known, misfit acts from the 90s – The God Machine, Eight Storey Window, Milk.
Writing on their performance in Leeds supporting Jo Quail last September, I wrote that ‘Their allure is not in the volume or force, but the threat, as if they’ve got a lot in reserve, simmering beneath the surface.’ This is very much true of Inviolate: there’s a lot of detail, a lot of texture, hints of psychedelia and some deep shoegaze as the guitars cascade kaleidoscopically in shimmering sheets of sound. It’s also very much about contrast. But also, on numerous occasions, they come good on that threat, delivering moments of explosive noise. Throughout, the strongest contrast lies in Caroline Cawley’s voice: it’s graceful, melodic, and there’s a soulful folksy feel to it, and even a certain hint of poppiness. Hers is certainly not an overtly ‘rock’ vocal style – post-rock, maybe – and certainly not grungey or remotely metal, and in eschewing any gnarly backing vocals, DFM place a firm distance between themselves and their infinite more metal peers. In fact, they place a distance between themselves and any other band, and utilise Cawley’s magnificently melodic tones to wander some softly rippling sonic waters and darker undercurrents, with ‘All the Light’ heavy on shadow.
‘Black-Cloaked’ has everything: a soft, melodic verse shaped by delicate, clean, chorus-dappled guitar that explodes into the most driving of riffs, before the soaring shoegaze sonic blizzard of ‘Ten Years’, a tidal wave of kaleidoscopic guitar shimmering to the close of an album that simply feels immense, and also really quite special.
Originally released in November 2018, Jo Quail’s Exsolve has been re-released, remastered, as a double vinyl effort on her own, newly-founded, AdderStone Records. It’s been expanded to include a new fourth track, ‘Reya Pavan’.
If a mere eleven months feels like an uncommonly short span of time, consider the fact that the original release wasn’t available on vinyl, and also the year Jo has had. With support slots with Mono and Emma Ruth Rundle, her profile has very much been on the up, and her performances have been consistently spellbinding.
Quail’s appeal was always likely to be subject to slow diffusion. While we’ve become accustomed to post-rock and experimental music, a solo cellist who conjures sound like a full rock band is essentially unique. Moreover, she’s more a purveyor of prog than neoclassical, and this really doesn’t sit readily with contemporary trends, however accommodating and broad-minded and receptive audiences are.
Christopher Nosnibor frothed effusively about the album on this very site a year ago and all of that still stands: this is a stunning album, and the depth and range of the sound is incredible. It has grace, it has power, it has impact, and it has blistering solos that sound like guitars. I’d challenge anyone to sit and listen to this without any forewarning and consider for a second this is the work of one person, or a solo cello album.
The new, additional composition, ‘Reya Pavan’ is the most overtly orchestral track on the album, and it oozes sadness rom the heart, while underpinned by a sonorous rhythmic throb that adds a very different dimension.
It’s not really a re-valuation as such, or a reissue, but a timely reboot, and Jo Quail is a singular and innovative artist who deserves the attention.
Over the course of the last eleven years, Emma Ruth Rundle has been busy, and has built a fair body of work in various forms, and her third solo album, On dark Horses has not only cemented her position with existing fans but also expanded her fan-base, resulting in tonight’s 400-plus capacity show close to a sell-out in advance.
It’s getting busy by the time Nottingham’s Dystopian Future Movies take the stage at 7:30, and on the strength of their releases to date and a strong set supporting Grave Lines at Wharf Chambers back in February, it’s not entirely surprising. The demographic spans a fair range of ages, but is characterised by long-haired gothy / hippie women and bearded hipster blokes. I swear they follow me around.
With a lineup of two guitars, bass, and drums, they’re a fairly conventional rock act, but their blend of post-rock, shoegaze and a dash of sludgy metal, they’re far from conventional musically. The set begins with an ethereal intro. The songs are defined by delicate, detailed, musicianship and spectacular crescendos, but they’re also liable to pulling back when least expected. With rolling drums and soaring vocals, ‘Countenance’ exploits the quiet / loud dynamic to the max. Their allure is not in the volume or force, but the threat, as if they’ve got a lot in reserve, simmering beneath the surface. And with grace and dynamic range, they’re a uniquely exciting act.
Dystopian Future Movies
It’s nice to see Jo Quail play a set that doesn’t start before the doors open (as was the case when she supported both Mono and Boris last year). She’s an artist who’s hard to place, but on a bill between Dystopian Future Movies and Emma Ruth Rundle, her brooding, turbulent cello works are a wonderful fit. Rapping out military tattoos and rolling thunder and sounds like nothing on earth, her mastery of her instrument is only matched by the passion with which she plays it. She opens with ‘White Salt Stag,’ and puts everything into her playing: hers is a very physical performance, which sees her channel the music through her body, while she conjures drama and otherworldly sound, layered upon layer of sound. It’s not quite going to plan for her technically with the looping, but it keeps it real and exciting. The third track of her set is ‘Reya Pavan’, the bonus track on the forthcoming Exsolve vinyl, which she’s performed (and by her admission, fucked up) only three times previously. It’s dark, spare, and brooding. She plays ‘Mandrel Cantus’ next, and it a bass throb and thrust with subsonic grooves and mewling top strings draped over an industrial rhythm. She finishes with ‘Adder Stone’, and it’s completely captivating.
Jo Quail
From the off, Emma Ruth Rundle and her band create captivating shoegaze cathedrals of sound, the likes of which have the power to evoke deep emotions. Despite being a solo artist, this is very much a band effort. The drummer looks particularly young, but they’re a tight unit. Watching the audience responses, it’s evident that for some, this is a deeply moving, spiritual experience. ‘So, Come’ hits a peak of near-transcendence. If she veers into vaguely emo territory at times, it’s actually okay. I wouldn’t normally say that, but she carries off those softer, more accessible moments with sincerity and the bursts of noise that characterise her set convey more than words ever could. Her delivery is disarmingly straightforward. She’s not big on between-song chat and mumbles a bit. And that’s okay. We’re here for the songs.
Emma Ruth Rundle
They depart – and swiftly return – in a tempest of noise to perform an encore consisting of the new single ‘You Don’t Need to Cry,’ before Emma performs ‘Real Big Sky’ solo. It’s an incredible moment, and as the lights come up, many remain rooted to the spot transfixed by the performance they’ve just witnessed. And when you see that, you know you’ve seen something special.
Internationally acclaimed composer and virtuoso cellist Jo Quail, who released new album Exsolve last week has unveiled her new music video for track ‘Mandrel Cantus’. Jo comments,
Mandrel Cantus is the second track on ‘Exsolve’ and the performance footage was filmed by Simon Kallas whilst creating the four excerpt videos for the rest of the album. Mike Fletcher is in Dunsborough, WA, and I work with Mike on many projects, both my own videos and soundtracks for his work as a landscape videographer and filmmaker. Mike blended his unique imagery to Simon’s footage, not only complementing the existing four visuals of ‘Exsolve’ but also conjoining the look and feel from previous album videos too. Much of what I do is inspired by landscape, and the internal or psychological mirror of this too, our own personal ‘map’ if you like, and this video encapsulates that completely.
Not so long ago, I began a review by saying I felt sorry for Jo Quail. That was no slight on her musical output, but an observation that as incredible performer, it seemed wrong that she should be put on so early that her set was a third of the way through before the doors even opened. On listening to Exsolve, my awe of her musicianship is greater than ever, which only renders the injustice worse. To get the point: this is an incredible album, a triumph of musicianship and vision in tandem to create something not only greater than the sum of the parts, but beyond imagination.
The accompanying press release informs us that Exsolve is comprised of three tracks, with each one being broken down in to sections and movements across 45 minutes. Mastered by James Griffiths, himself a film composer, there is, the blurb notes, an almost symphonic quality to the album. This is true, but there is so, so much more, much of which defies conventional description: it speaks not to the domain of words, but the psyche.
The bald facts are that Jo Quail plays cello, and does so through a raft of effects to create sounds a million light years removed from the cello, looping bangs on the mic to create thunderous percussion and conjuring eerie moans and grating tempests of sound. The result is pretty heavy, not to mention intense.
Eight minutes into ‘Forge of Two Forms’, Quail is conjuring blistering interweaving prog riffs against a swirling backdrop of noise and thumping beats. Epic doesn’t come close. It sounds like a full band pushing into new realms of enormity, and with a blistering distorted picked motif that sounds like a crisply-executed lead guitar line, it’s easy to forget just how this music is made. Twelve minutes in, it’s tapered down to nothing and actually sounds like subdued, low-tempo orchestral dronings, creeping atmospherics and melancholy. The transitions are seamless, invisible, but definite as the extended soundworks transition between segments.
‘Mandrel Cantus’ sends sonar echoes across low, slow ripples of mellow cadences, and somehow builds into a monumental emulation of a guitar solo of monumental proportions. How did this happen? From whence did this immense sound emerge?
Everything coalesces on the third and final composition, ‘Causleens Wheel’ which begins delicately, builds to a rolling, roiling, sustained crescendo. It’s a multi-faceted composition, tonally rich and also moving, not just by force but by expression.
Powerful, graceful, compelling and dramatic, Exsolve is a remarkable album of rare quality.
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Aural Aggravation 