It’s close to five years since the Covid pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns which caused so much trauma for those confined to their homes.
And yet, we still find ourselves mentioning that time when homebound creative types found ways to get through the time and make something positive from their enforced situation.
Louise Quinn, happily, is now making new full-contact tunes with her new Gates of Light II project.
The original came about during the pandemic lockdown of 2020, bringing together Quinn and producer Bal Cooke in Glasgow, Scott Fraser in London, Kid Loco in Paris, and art director Timothy Saccenti in New York.
This truly global effort resulted in the first Gates of Light album, but now, the project has subdivided geographically – ‘Gates Of Light II (Glasgow Edition)’ focused on Quinn’s collaboration with former Teenage Fanclub man Finlay MacDonald followed by ‘The Paris Edition’, again produced by French trip-hop legend Kid Loco.
And the latest edition lands in London, a collaboration with producer/DJ Scott Fraser – the air having previously worked on a track which was remixed and released by the late iconic music producer Andrew Weatherall.
Despite coming together via a chance meeting, Quinn and Fraser both hail from East Kilbride – “home of the Jesus and Mary Chain, and Dee Hepburn from Gregory’s Girl”, Quinn smiles.
“I’m so glad I got to focus on my collaboration with Scott for this EP,” the singer says, “his production takes my voice and songwriting into other spheres and realms where music is maths, and definitely ‘sublime magick’ – as Andrew Weatherall described our first collaboration.”
Fraser adds: “When Louise sent me the early demos and vocal recordings I was really taken with their fragility and the idea of capturing some kind of Michael Mann/Brian De Palma score from the ’80s – tension, composure, dark into light if you will, feelings of time, space and beauty.”
Quinn adds: “Already reviewers are making inevitable Primal Scream and St Etienne comparisons and there are undeniable nineties influences on this EP; the nineties was a great time for club culture, genre shifting and cross-overs which understandably people want to revisit and revive. But I think this collaboration is so much more; I think it defies classification. For me it’s timeless and transcendent, as Andrew Weatherall described.
“For me, this is art.”
Gates of Light’s London Edition EP is available now, via Last Night From Glasgow, as are the Paris, London and Glasgow Editions. This article originally appeared in the Yorkshire Evening Post.
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