Guest Playlist: Jo Quail

In the run up to acclaimed composer and virtuoso cellist Jo Quail‘s new album Exsolve, we asked her to put together a playlist of the artists and tracks that have influenced her throughout the years.

Watch Jo Quail’s trailer for the album here, with an excerpt of the track ‘Mandrel Cantus’:

Artists / Tracks that have influenced me:

Dead Can Dance – ‘Song of the Sybil’
My cousins playing this whole album to me when I was maybe 12, sitting on the steps outside their flat on a warm summer night. This careful, simple yet wholly powerful arrangement has stayed by my side over the years.

G Tom Mac – ‘Cry Little Sister’ (from The Lost Boys)
I remember watching The Lost Boys for the first time as a kid, and immediately rushing upstairs to the piano to play this theme back. I still love this track today (and the movie!).

Jane’s Addiction – ‘Three Days’
Perry Farrel’s vocals are unbridled in an almost animalistic fashion and this gives such space, it removes boundaries of precision in a way, yet there is so much precision in the whole track. It creates a kind of virile rawness that pervades ‘Three Days’, and much more of their music too.

Tchaikovsky Symphony No.6 – ‘Adagio (final movement)’
I have to listen to this periodically. There’s an incredible YouTube performance conducted by Myung Whun Chung that I often visit. The whole symphony is stunning but this movement especially has a place in my heart. I played this years ago and for the first time felt the true power of a symphony orchestra, and knew first-hand the absolute intention in the weight and heaviness wrought from the instruments and performers.

Saul Williams – ‘Twice The First Time’
Awesome track. He’s mesmerising in live performance and has a real breadth to what he does in terms of arrangement, as well as brilliant lyrics. Watching him open for Nine Inch Nails was a huge and profound learning curve for me.

Ratt – ‘Round and Round’
I love Ratt for several reasons but in this track it’s the drive and the kind of confident (hedonistic!) attitude that pervades the writing and the live show too, it delivers in droves!

Arvo Part – ‘Fratres’ (for strings and percussion)
When I first heard this in concert I was completely moved. The harmonic movement of the strings, the rhythmic unison, coupled with the constant pedal A sparse and profound percussion. This is pure beauty.

Manuel De Falla – ‘Asturiana’
Beauty, grace and elegance. I have played this arranged for cello and piano, and also arranged and performed it as a cello quartet in a concert a few years back. The harmonies are close, and there is a gentle almost omnipresent movement in the piano or guitar underpinning the voice which, when it pauses, creates the most powerful space in the music.

Lana Del Rey – ‘Summertime Sadness’
At home people like the Cedric Gervais remix particularly! The whole remix concept has influenced me a great deal, especially in the way I’ve dealt with pieces like ‘White Salt Stag’ in live performance, bringing the pace up a bit and making fuller use of percussion to drive things along, cutting things out or apparently ‘splicing’ them sonically speaking – changing bowing or phrasing to get a very different feel from a track that I’ve felt has been less settled previously.

Huge thanks to Jo Quail for selecting these tunes for us! Listen to them in our Guest Playlist here: 

 

Jo Quail’s upcoming album Exsolve is out 2nd November. 

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Track Of The Day: DIDI – ‘Fickle Friends’

Following GIHE favourites ‘Sorry’ and last single ‘Fast And Furious’ – and having received acclaim from the likes of BBC Radio 6 Music’s Chris Hawkins and Tom Robinson as well as an NMG award for breakthrough artist – songwriter and producer Lauren Deakin Davies – aka DIDI – is back with another utterly infectious offering.

Oozing her trademark vibrant, colourful energy alongside buzzing hooks ‘Fickle Friends’ is another slice of uptempo, sparkling pop-punk from the young artist. Propelled by DIDI’s raw, impassioned vocals and an impressive musicality, it’s an instantly catchy raging anthem, that will energise and motivate on first listen.

Of the track, DIDI explains:

“I wrote this song a little while ago and it was originally written on ukulele of all things. It’s very interesting to see the transition in my mental state between when I wrote this and now. I was feeling quite bitter at the time – I was very hurt and I still feel quite strongly about this song and the situation so it made sense to release it as a single. Perhaps other people will relate to the raw emotion.“

 

‘Fickle Friends’ is out now, and DIDI will be releasing her debut EP on 1st November.

Mari Lane
@marimindles

 

 

 

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Track Of The Day: Guttfull – ‘Tits and Nails’

London punks GUTTFULL are flicking the V at cat-callers and their pathetic behaviour in their new video for single ‘Tits and Nails’. Shot & Directed by our faves The Menstrual Cramps, the visuals feature front-woman Momoe tackling her harassers* head on (*Beth & Robyn from TMCs), as well as footage of the band performing live.

Taken from their debut album of the same name (released 10th November via Loud Women Records), ‘Tits and Nails’ is a joyously scathing punk-sax anthem that takes the piss out of the pervasive nature of street harassment. It’s a welcome antidote to all the bullshit women and girls have to put up with when going about their daily routine – delivered with sass, rage, glitter and grit.

GUTTFULL will be celebrating the release of their debut album on the 10th of November at The Hope and Anchor (RSVP here). After their recent knockout performance at Loud Women Festival, you don’t want to miss out on their riotous live performances. Watch the video for ‘Tits and Nails’ below and follow GUTTFULL on Facebook for more updates.

GUTTFULL 2018 Live Dates
13 Oct – The Loud Women (3rd Birthday Party), N1
27 Oct – The Railway, Southend-on-Sea (with T-Bitch)
10 Nov – Tits and Nails album launch, Hope & Anchor, N1, (with Jemma Freeman and the Cosmic Something and more)

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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Guest Blog: Artist Manager, Ella Gregg

In a new guest blog feature, 20 year old Ella Gregg shares her experience of being an artist manager, and her journey to get there… 

I began my career as an artist manager at the age of 18, almost completely accidentally.

Since the age of 15, I have always had an interest in emerging artists – listening to music by artists who people had never heard before, like knowing a secret that no one else knew.  Through social media platforms such as Twitter, I was involved in a community where new  artists were fighting for your attention and craving your support, and I began heavily supporting the artists I had discovered who I knew were worth supporting and putting my time into. I would promote these artists on social media and, without really knowing, I became a semi-guru in new music; artists would then start asking me to promote them in the same way I had promoted other people.

At the age of 17, I had just finished my A Levels and, after being a police cadet for 5 years, I was adamant I was going to take a gap year before joining my local police force. However, this didn’t go to plan. In the Summer of 2016, I was approached by artist development platform Secret Sessions, run by Harriet Jordan-Wrench, to join the team as an unpaid intern for the Summer. My role would be to invite emerging artists to join the platform which gave them the opportunities to apply for live shows and sync deals that the platform had on offer. I would have input in curating the secret live shows and choosing artists who would be appropriate for the opportunities we had available. To be able to have such an immediate and beneficial part to play in artists’ careers was incredible and I was completely in love with my job. I stayed at Secret Sessions a lot longer than just the Summer, scouting and working with over 1000 artists in 18 months.

Working and discovering new talent every day meant that I was going to come across gold dust and I did so in a band called Blushes. Their music was incomparable and I spent hours watching videos and listening to their music in awe. The band put me in contact with their manager at that time, and I set up a meeting with him for the next day. I explained what Secret Sessions did in depth and how I would love to have got Blushes involved, but instead he asked me if I would like to begin working for his management company, working alongside himself and Blushes.

So, at the age of 18, I began working with Blushes as their booking agent. I had absolutely no experience or contacts in booking gigs, but I wasn’t scared to learn on the job and I booked the band numerous shows, as well as their first UK tour. Within the first 6 months of managing Blushes, they completed their first UK tour, they had been featured by NME and their track ‘To The Bone’ had been played on BBC Radio 1. The great publicity and support from NME didn’t end there, Blushes have been featured in 2 separate articles since the first, they have been featured in NME’s 100 Artists for 2018 list, and they have had a 4 page spread in their magazine. With this confirmation that, hey, maybe I’m not doing too badly after all, I decided to set up my own management company and officially manage Blushes under my own name, with my own company – 321 Artists.

I’d be completely lying if I said it had been easy. Being a young artist manager with no experience is HARD. I’ve never made a huge thing of my age or gender in the work I do, but there have been many occasions where I’ve stopped and thought “Would you be speaking to me like that if I was 40 year old man?” because sometimes I feel as if that’s what it comes down to.

I’m in an incredibly fortunate position to be in such an impactful industry at such a young age, and I know I have a very long way to go, and a lot to learn, and I was very lucky with how I ended up working in the music industry. If I hadn’t been scouted, I don’t know if I would have been able to navigate the different avenues to get into the industry. That’s why my aim with 321 artists is to work closely with colleges and schools, giving young people the opportunity to experience the music industry – helping the next generation
of photographers, journalists, producers and artist managers to find their way into
the music industry.

Huge thanks to Ella for sharing her experience with us! Find out more about her company 321 Artists here. 

 

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