A Bad Novel and a Roll of the Dice with Slowlight Quartet
What do you get when you combine a dynamic jazz band reuniting after seven years apart, one of the best vocalists we’ve ever heard and a string of fantastic new songs recorded in front of a live studio audience? You get Slowlight Quartet’s new double A-Side ‘Superbia’ and ‘Eveliina’.
Slowlight Quartet. From left to right: John Hirst, Paul Loraine, Tom Quilliam and Ian Paterson.
Coming together in 2012, Slowlight Quartet are a jazz ensemble originally formed of keyboardist Paul Loraine, saxophonist Tom Quilliam, Ian Paterson on bass and Jonathan Marriott behind the drums. With a base of Newcastle upon Tyne, they released their debut EP ‘In Flight’ in 2014, later putting out the EP’s launch gig augmented by the Slowlight Strings. ‘Live at the Star & Shadow’ was followed by a full live album, taken from their set recorded at the Manchester Jazz Festival in July 2014.
With bandmembers moving abroad, Slowlight Quartet were put on ice in 2015, the pandemic shifting their reunion plans back further to the summer of 2022 where they reconvened with new drummer John Hirst. In just one day in July, they recorded two new singles, the instrumental ‘Full Beam, Alan’ and ‘Lullaby (for the end of the world)’ featuring guest vocalist YVA. The artistic moniker taken by musician Amy Holford, we wrote about YVA’s tremendous EP ‘Hype Machine’ in 2021, centring on the effect social media has on the psyche.
In February, Slowlight Quartet set out to record their next album live in front of a studio audience across four performances on the 11th and 12th. This was preceded only by five days of intensive rehearsal, but has so far yielded the singles ‘Firmament’ (with YVA) and the instrumental ‘Tall Tales’. Their latest release is a double A-Side of tracks, both featuring YVA - the charged ‘Superbia’ and subtle wooing of ‘Eveliina’.
‘It’s heavy, a tiresome mediocrity, pressing on us endlessly.’
Atmospheric synths from Paul Loraine shimmer across an opening solid beat from John Hirst. Among these is electric piano and Moog bass bolstering the rhythm section from Ian Paterson. Augmenting the band for these sessions is guitarist Athol Cassidy of funk electronica trio Twin Beam, whose playing is rhythmically sympathetic but texturally resonate with Paul’s keyboard layers.
‘He’s a friend of a friend, so I guess that’s cool.’
The lyricism voiced by YVA doesn’t take itself too seriously, but at the same time you can’t help but be swept up by it. It’s catchy both in words and melody from the telephone quality pre-chorus, ‘I can’t let it lie, let it lie,’ to the powerful, ‘Doctor can you read my mind?’, YVA crying out ‘Superbia! Superbia!’ In this track, YVA reaches full voice, showing you the sheer breadth of her capability, much like her recent solo single, ‘I Have Seen’.
Having hung back with the bassline, Tom Quilliam truly makes himself known in the song’s latter quarter as his saxophone playing takes centre stage. First he falls in line with Loraine’s keyboard stabs before taking a solo that winds through John Hirst’s rhythm and brings this infectious song to a close.
‘You went away, Eveliina. I call your name, Eva can you hear me?’
A perfect double A-Side is always made of opposing tracks, and this is true for ‘Eveliina’. The pace is brought down, and the band is stripped of all the atmospheric layers conjured for ‘Superbia’. The presence Slowlight Quartet creates here puts you in the room with the ensemble and the audience, from Paul Loraine’s bubbling electric piano to Ian Paterson’s pointed bass playing, locked in with John Hirst. Even the sheen of the latter’s cymbals reflect on the ceiling as you absorb this track. Hirst later changes up the rhythm, like two lovers taking a walk. Athol Cassidy’s tone remains the same, but the band leave space for him to show flair as a lead guitarist, particularly in these rhythmic changes.
‘Not gonna tell me it’s a roll of the dice…’
The lyric in ‘Eveliina’ is yearning, and YVA keeps her voice low, as if this is a conversation between just the two of them, occasionally breaking this illusion as the band shouts ‘Hey!’ in unison with the vocalist. YVA also accompanies herself with soothing backing vocals, a different skill from the belting on ‘Superbia’, giving the listener a glimpse of her versatility. Tom Quilliam’s saxophone playing is supportive of the melody, dialled back to give more focus on the lyric, but most prominent in those wordless moments where the lovers exchange glances.
The relaxed but assured expertise of Slowlight Quartet and YVA’s soaring voice creates a winning combination in this new material. It’s hard to believe this music was recorded in front of an audience, only proved by the applause of some twenty to thirty people following the performances. The band are tight, rigid in their arrangements, but not so over-rehearsed as to remove the freshness of these engaging tracks.
Taken from their forthcoming album, these new songs are a tantalising glimpse of the delights to come. Slowlight Quartet are due to give a rare live performance at this year’s Newcastle Jazz Festival on August 20th, perhaps fans will have a chance to hear more new material there?
Continue reading for our Q&A with Slowlight Quartet. Answering predominantly as a band, we talk about the experience of recording this new material with an in-studio audience. YVA tells us how she got involved with the Quartet and how the small crowd reacted to ‘Superbia’. We also ask the band more about their upcoming gig at the Newcastle Jazz Festival and much more!
1. You've continued to tease your forthcoming album with the new double A-side 'Superbia' and 'Eveliina', what inspired the decision to cut these songs live as opposed to a traditional studio album?
Slowlight Quartet: We’ve always been super inspired by the Snarky Puppy live recording videos that they continue to put out and really wanted to try recording a whole album live. Having had such a long break from playing live and living in different countries we figured this was the most time effective, challenging and fun way to do it. And it really was!
2. With these new songs recorded in front of four separate studio audiences, was that an added pressure in the recording process? Did you feel yourself relaxing by the fourth gig?
SQ: We’ve had a long break from playing live, so we wanted to take the opportunity to play for a few small audiences, have a nice time and get a recording out of it. We wanted to give ourselves the chance to play the tunes as many times as possible knowing that they would get better and better and they did. There were so many friendly faces in the audience and we were so happy with the tunes that we relaxed into it and it became really enjoyable.
Athol Cassidy and Tom Quilliam.
3. Writing and rehearsing for the live album was incredibly quick, do you write as a band? Are individual ideas brought to the table to form the basis for new ideas?
SQ: We tend to bring ideas in individually - for this album songs were written by Tom, John and Paul separately and then brought into the band to be tweaked/arranged. For this recording, we had a nice mix of fully formed songs (some written a few years ago and some a few weeks before recording) and shorter fragments which became known as the nuggets. We had fun working up the arrangements together under some time pressure before the gigs.
4. Of course, YVA is a big part of these new songs too. How did you convey to YVA the kind of delivery you wanted in these songs? Who penned the lyrics?
SQ: Paul wrote the vocal tunes so he and Amy spoke before we met as a group about those songs, delivery and the stories behind the lyrics.
Paul Loraine: YVA is such a class act, I think the trick was just getting out of her way and not trying to control every detail so she felt comfortable delivering the songs in her unique way.
YVA and Athol Cassidy.
5. YVA, this is a new era for Slowlight Quartet, how did you get involved with making this new music?
YVA: Tom had approached me a few years ago, pre-lockdown, about doing some writing with them at his hostel in Montenegro, which I'd been to a couple of times already on my jollies! I'm also friends with his wife so it was kind of a bit like stars aligning. But then covid hit and it got pushed back and then it didn't happen, until they asked me to sing on Lullaby last year. We did the session in one morning with Ian in the room and Liam engineering, and Paul on zoom from Finland. It was a really weird experience. I've done a lot of recording but I felt quite nervy. I know why now, because they're all ridiculous musicians. You'd think I'd be comfortable in those environments but it never gets old, being in the company of proper talent.
6. You're no stranger to live performance, but how did it feel to be cutting an album with a studio audience? Was there added pressure to ensure every take was perfect?
YVA: Recording an album live was both exhilarating, exhausting and amazing. I've done nothing like it before and I'd bet I won't do anything like it for a while. But much like a live performance is, you take your chances and go with the flow. If we made errors (which I don't think we did, actually), that was just how it was. I expected there to be a live element to how the songs eventually were mixed, but you honestly can't tell until the audience is applauding at the end. It's mad. It's a testament to how we played but also what an amazing engineer Liam Gaughan is.
7. Who do you imagine Eveliina is?
YVA: My secret girlfriend.
8. 'Superbia' has such a good feel. What was the audience reaction to that one like?
YVA: Superbia was a jam. I was laughing through most of the takes because we all knew that it was faintly ridiculous that Paul had written a song with the word "jib" in it and I made it my mission to make Paul giggle throughout. I had a lot of fun on this one. I think it was the one song that people were bopping about to, it doesn't take itself too seriously and that's what I love most about the song but also just the experience of playing with the lads. It was class.
9. The sound is beautifully crisp in these recordings, have you found you've had to embellish them at all beyond the initial live recording session?
SQ: There has been very little embellishment of the tracks from the initial live recording session. We’ve not really gone back to re-record parts (bar one bass line we weren’t happy with during the week but didn’t have time to revise) etc so it’s more just the mixing. This session was a long time in the planning (three years due to COVID) and so Liam had a long time to figure the best approach to getting maximum separation between instruments.
You’ll note in the videos that the audience are all wearing Silent Disco headphones - the only acoustic noise in the room was sax / vox / drums - we’d see people taking their headphones on and off during the gigs to see the complete difference in sound! And as it was in headphones the overall volume was lower, so less bleed between instruments etc.
John Hirst.
10. This new era for the band began with 'Full Beam, Alan' last year, how did it feel to be back in a studio together after such a long time apart?
SQ: It just felt amazing. We’ve kept in touch since we stopped playing together and have remained really good friends despite the core trio (Ian / Tom / Paul) from the original quartet living in three separate countries. And so in a way this week kind of grew out of that - we wanted to see each other again, in person and play music together again. So we did! We all look a little more haggard but otherwise we got back in the swing of it quite quickly.
11. With such a long time between getting together, and having a new drummer in the mix, has the band dynamic changed at all?
Paul: I guess in the past we had weeks, months to polish things, pull tunes apart and put them back together and so on. Now, when we meet there is an element of time pressure before we all go our separate ways. So that’s new but we’ve adapted and do a lot more writing and planning online these days. John has slotted in seamlessly on drums - masterful player and a lovely man.
12. You're returning to live performance at the Newcastle Jazz Festival later in August, what can fans expect from that? Will there be more live performances?
SQ: We’ve got 45 mins so it’s going to be the best of the vocal tracks plus a few choice instrumentals. Both the organisers came to the album recording and were blown away by it and just said ‘come do your thing please!’ We’re not really a functional gigging band (Paul still lives in Finland and Tom travels quite a bit) so we’re planning more projects like this. We’re pondering doing a live soundtrack for a film next and maybe a larger ensemble project with string section / horns etc. Hopefully one larger project per year which we can document and really enjoy doing.
13. The music of Slowlight Quartet is purely organic, what are your feelings on people using AI to compose music, or to put words in the mouths of artists they've never sung?
Paul: Not sure we’re much an authority on this! It will be fascinating to see where it goes but the AI development may go in directions we’re not even anticipating so I’m not sure what to think. I know some bands have used AI to help compose lyrics which can lead to interesting places. Who knows, maybe we’ll buy in and our next album will be “Elvis sings SLQ”.
14. We've already had a few cuts from the album, what are you most excited for people to hear that they haven't heard yet?
Paul: We’re excited to put all of it out - Tides (next single) should be a nice one, featuring YVA and Athol Cassidy on guitar. We’re also proud of the instrumental tunes, some of which have quite a different mood and feel. It’s quite a varied bunch of tunes and we’re all proud of how it turned out.
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Listen to the recent singles from Slowlight Quartet, including ‘Superbia’ and ‘Eveliina’.
Explore the previous works of Slowlight Quartet on their Bandcamp page.
Listen to YVA’s solo music, including her latest single ‘I Have Seen’, on her Bandcamp page.
Follow Slowlight Quartet on Facebook and Instagram @theslowlightquartet.
Follow YVA on Instagram @yva_music, on Facebook @YVAmusicuk and on Twitter @YVAOfficial.
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