Jo Quail et Dead Space Chamber Music

Along with about 200 others I went along to St. John on Bethnal Green Church on a cold Saturday night in February to see Jo Quail's latest incarnation entitled 'Nocturnes'. This had been a long time in the making, and for this event she had surrounded herself with other artistes and friends for a truly memorable evening of music.

It kicked off with seven short works re-arranged by Jo for a cello quartet (Jo, Raffaele Ottonello, Laura Passey and Anna Scott), later joined by Daniel Merrill on violin, with music as varied as Bartok, Michael Gore, Schein, De Falla, Van Halen, Nine Inch Nails and the anonymously composed 'Vigil', with which she often opens her gigs. She explained that all of these pieces had formed the soundtrack to her life.

Next came two tracks from her 'From The Sea' album - 'Hunter From The East', with violin instead of the original guitar accompaniment, and then Mohan Rana reading his poetry that inspired 'The Colour of Water'. These were followed by 'South West Night' from her 'Caldera' album, but with a twist - Robyn Sellman (of 'Autorotation' fame) providing some improvised lyrics, Al Richardson producing similarly improvised percussion and the whole audience joining in with their own version of sounds from the Australian bush, brilliantly conducted by Jos Pijnappel, who had travelled from Holland specifically for this event!

After the interval we heard an accoustic version of 'The Hidden Forest' from 'Caldera', and were then treated to the Jo that we know and love - she of the electric cello and loop stations! Three more tracks from 'Caldera', and her staple 'The Falconer' from her 'From The Sea' album, each one with some very gentle percussion from Al.

Now to the climax - the premiere of her new work 'This Path With Grace', which can only be described as a 20 minute epic, using all of the artistes previously mentioned, with the addition of the Green Army Choir. This is an extremely ambitious work, in four connected movements, inspired by the work of Michael Fletcher, an Australian landscape videographer. In Jo's own words she used the music to 'try to paint the scenes of the derelict churches, glacial waters and windswept lands'. Somehow hearing this for the first time in a church seemed the perfect finale, but listening to it again in complete silence through headphones enables one to create their own similar images - what an amazing piece of work that will live long in the memories of those present!

The whole evening was enjoyable for performers and audience alike, and the standing ovation was utterly well deserved! It didn't stop until she re-appeared and gave a great rendition of 'Adder Stone'. One has to wonder how Jo can top a rapturous evening like this, but you can be sure that if anyone can, it will be Jo.

The event was managed by Alan Pride and promoted by Kunal Singhal on behalf of Chaos Theory.

Imagine you’ve just awoken and you’re wandering the corridors of a space station, but it’s not the clean, functional corporate sort of space station that the USS Enterprise would dock at; nor is it the beat up, lived in funky sort of space station where you’d find the Millennium Falcon. This is a space station designed by Giger & Lynch. You’re walking the corridors, feeling at ease and comforted but strangely there’s an underlying sense of other worldliness about the environment…something not quite right? Surely Cthulhu can’t have made it to the edge of the universe?

You enter a biosphere with a babbling brook and rolling English meadows and hear what almost sounds like a spidery madrigal, a plaintive voice “Flow my tears…flow my tears….” strong and clear and yet with an undeniable tinge of melancholy.

Leaving the biosphere you’re plunged into darker realms, the otherworldliness has transmuted to base menace, there’s something just of sight, lurking at the corner of your eye, not willing to show itself until…until the time is right.

Quickening your pace, you burst through the doors ahead to find yourself in a courtyard surrounded by Moorish buildings with the sun setting behind the minarets. The dervishes and djinn are dancing, but in slow motion, and you’re compelled to join them until the music ceases, leaving you off kilter – not disturbed but dishevelled and disorientated as the musicians leave the stage.

Dead Space Chamber Music played four pieces of music – Food for the Moon (an improvisation); Flow My Tears (a John Dowland adaptation); Screaming Veils (an improvisation) and Je Vivroie Liement (a reworking of a Machaut composition). The music was executed in near dark and Tom Bush, Liz Muir and Ellen Southern delivered the performance with classy, understated aplomb.

The audience awoke in the corridors with Southern amongst them playing a wine glass; the transition from the corridors to the biosphere saw the music fading to black with Southern easing the transition with the rustling of a space blanket. Her vocals (whether singing or vocalising) were strong but just so, and she was a captivating focal point in a less is more way.

Bush’s guitar was treated throughout and mostly the source of great swathes of ambience rather than solos or riffs (but there was some welcome heft in Je Vivroie Liement); Muir’s cello was both treated and au naturel, forming the bedrock for the pieces, dragging the sci-fi sounds back to the Gothic. All three musicians worked pedals and shakers both individually and in tandem to dress the soundscapes with misheard noises, unearthly transmissions and sonic emissions.

This was a confident, challenging and satisfying suite of work, the four pieces seguing seamlessly as a collective piece of music and Dead Space Chamber Music are a band that will reward your attention in ways you never thought possible. Jonathon Kardasz, Bristol 24/7 full review - https://www.bristol247.com/culture/music/review-bonnacons-of-doom-the-cube/