If progressive music is about anything beyond long-winded epics and curry-stained capes, it must be a wide-eyed and persistent disregard for the norm. The greats of the genre all had a desire to push music into new territory, and use any artistic or technical resources that came to hand. The cello wielding embodiment of that ethos, Jo Quail may not be making traditional prog rock of any kind, but her fearless, questing spirit has won countless admirers from the prog and heavy music communities over the last few years.
Her last full release, The Cartographer, was a wildly atmospheric orchestral piece that made oblique nods to Rock In Opposition bands Art Zoyd and Univers Zero. Her latest, Invocation/ Supplication is effectively two distinct collaborations with two singers: Maria Franz of runic renegades Heilung, and Italian producer and composer Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari (or Lef, as Quail calls him). Another immersive and disarming piece of deep leftfield, gleefully experimental instrumental music, Invocation/Supplication continues the cellist's established tradition of making records that sound like nothing else on Earth.
When Prog catches up with Jo Quail via Zoom, she initially seems a bit flustered and murmurs something about "spinning a lot of plates at the moment". Once we begin to discuss Invocation/Supplication, all traces of stress disappear from her face, as she explains how Franz and Fornasari's voices ended up on her latest project.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1706879462/articles/LTFaaOGLY1707139327633/0886376363.jpg]
"I've known Maria for years," she explains. "I've met her loads of times, I've supported Heilung, and I've stayed at her house stacks of times, but I'd never actually written for her. It was funny because I wasn't quite brave enough to think that our friendship would extend to her agreeing to sing some songs that I created! Also, she's Maria and she must get 50 million people every day asking her to collaborate or to appear as a guest. I wanted to make it perfect before I presented anything to her, but then I mentioned it to Michael [Berberian] at Season Of Mist Records, bless him, and he went straight in and ran it up the flagpole! I was mortified and very thankful as well! [Laughs.]"
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1706879462/articles/LTFaaOGLY1707139327633/1881841311.jpg]
Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari has worked with everyone from Lisa Gerrard and Bill Laswell to King Crimson alumnus Pat Mastelotto and former Porcupine Tree bassist Colin Edwin (in ongoing post-rock crew O.R.k.). He has an extraordinary, ethereal and evocative voice: the perfect match for Quail's amorphous cello explorations.
"The first time I ever met Lef was actually onstage," she says, eyebrows raised in mock surprise. "I was invited onstage to perform with him, without any rehearsal, so I'd never even said hello to the bloke. But I knew him.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1706879462/articles/LTFaaOGLY1707139327633/1011866637.jpg]
You know when you have that connection? He was so easy to be with onstage, and after that I was like, 'Jesus, that's one hell of a talented man!' Lef's voice is in the same register as my cello. I was thinking of him when I was working on Supplication, thinking very lyrically with the cello. I wanted there to be no space to tell where I ended and Lef began.
We have this sort of creative closeness." Six tracks and 36 minutes deep, Invocation/ Supplication is the classic game of two halves.
In the first, Maria Franz's haunting vocals collide with hypnotic, tribal drums and intertwined tonal surges (Macha), waves of queasy, glacial ambience (Willow Of All), and profoundly cinematic, orchestral disquiet (Baroscyre). In the second, Fornasari's lithe, exotic voice soars across a minimal backdrop of earthy cello drones (The Calling), a funeral procession of churning strings (Maestoso) and an ululating fog of subterranean bass and ghostly crescendos. Ideally consumed in one disorientating hit, it's a collection of great contrasts and secrets.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1706879462/articles/LTFaaOGLY1707139327633/0706188464.jpg]
"The main differences [between the halves] are that Maria's side, Invocation, is quite strident and a very outwards-looking-type thing," she explains. "The orchestration is huge on that one, but Lef's side is much more intimate: the orchestration is much smaller. It's just me and Lef on there, with a little bit from Koen [Kaptjn] on trombone, a snippet here and there. So Invocation, for Maria, is quite powerful, it's about the feminine archetype, whereas Supplication is almost like a glimpse of a very private moment. So that's where the balance is, although that's just my opinion. People are free to interpret this however they wish! [Laughs.] Sometimes I feel like the custodian of something, not the c...
Her last full release, The Cartographer, was a wildly atmospheric orchestral piece that made oblique nods to Rock In Opposition bands Art Zoyd and Univers Zero. Her latest, Invocation/ Supplication is effectively two distinct collaborations with two singers: Maria Franz of runic renegades Heilung, and Italian producer and composer Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari (or Lef, as Quail calls him). Another immersive and disarming piece of deep leftfield, gleefully experimental instrumental music, Invocation/Supplication continues the cellist's established tradition of making records that sound like nothing else on Earth.
When Prog catches up with Jo Quail via Zoom, she initially seems a bit flustered and murmurs something about "spinning a lot of plates at the moment". Once we begin to discuss Invocation/Supplication, all traces of stress disappear from her face, as she explains how Franz and Fornasari's voices ended up on her latest project.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1706879462/articles/LTFaaOGLY1707139327633/0886376363.jpg]
"I've known Maria for years," she explains. "I've met her loads of times, I've supported Heilung, and I've stayed at her house stacks of times, but I'd never actually written for her. It was funny because I wasn't quite brave enough to think that our friendship would extend to her agreeing to sing some songs that I created! Also, she's Maria and she must get 50 million people every day asking her to collaborate or to appear as a guest. I wanted to make it perfect before I presented anything to her, but then I mentioned it to Michael [Berberian] at Season Of Mist Records, bless him, and he went straight in and ran it up the flagpole! I was mortified and very thankful as well! [Laughs.]"
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1706879462/articles/LTFaaOGLY1707139327633/1881841311.jpg]
Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari has worked with everyone from Lisa Gerrard and Bill Laswell to King Crimson alumnus Pat Mastelotto and former Porcupine Tree bassist Colin Edwin (in ongoing post-rock crew O.R.k.). He has an extraordinary, ethereal and evocative voice: the perfect match for Quail's amorphous cello explorations.
"The first time I ever met Lef was actually onstage," she says, eyebrows raised in mock surprise. "I was invited onstage to perform with him, without any rehearsal, so I'd never even said hello to the bloke. But I knew him.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1706879462/articles/LTFaaOGLY1707139327633/1011866637.jpg]
You know when you have that connection? He was so easy to be with onstage, and after that I was like, 'Jesus, that's one hell of a talented man!' Lef's voice is in the same register as my cello. I was thinking of him when I was working on Supplication, thinking very lyrically with the cello. I wanted there to be no space to tell where I ended and Lef began.
We have this sort of creative closeness." Six tracks and 36 minutes deep, Invocation/ Supplication is the classic game of two halves.
In the first, Maria Franz's haunting vocals collide with hypnotic, tribal drums and intertwined tonal surges (Macha), waves of queasy, glacial ambience (Willow Of All), and profoundly cinematic, orchestral disquiet (Baroscyre). In the second, Fornasari's lithe, exotic voice soars across a minimal backdrop of earthy cello drones (The Calling), a funeral procession of churning strings (Maestoso) and an ululating fog of subterranean bass and ghostly crescendos. Ideally consumed in one disorientating hit, it's a collection of great contrasts and secrets.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1625747790/1706879462/articles/LTFaaOGLY1707139327633/0706188464.jpg]
"The main differences [between the halves] are that Maria's side, Invocation, is quite strident and a very outwards-looking-type thing," she explains. "The orchestration is huge on that one, but Lef's side is much more intimate: the orchestration is much smaller. It's just me and Lef on there, with a little bit from Koen [Kaptjn] on trombone, a snippet here and there. So Invocation, for Maria, is quite powerful, it's about the feminine archetype, whereas Supplication is almost like a glimpse of a very private moment. So that's where the balance is, although that's just my opinion. People are free to interpret this however they wish! [Laughs.] Sometimes I feel like the custodian of something, not the c...
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Prog (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 147