Jo Quail

Based in London, Jo Quail has since the early 2010s developed a solo cello practice that blends contemporary writing, ambient, drone and post-rock in an instrumental format that is at once repetitive and narrative. Trained early in her instrument and then graduated in performance at the University of Leeds, she initially worked in collective projects within the London scene, notably Earth Loop Recall, featured on the Compulsion album in 2003, then SonVer, founded with Ben McLees, with a first self-titled album in 2005 and Luz Del Abyss in 2008. After SonVer ended in 2010, Jo Quail refocused her activity on a personal repertoire built for both live performance and recording, with From The Sea in 2011, Caldera in 2014, Five Incantations in 2016, Exsolve in 2018 and The Cartographer in 2022. Her music rests on overlays of cello lines, dense textures and a strong sense of progression, between minimalism, harmonic tension and impulses close to experimental and neoclassical music. Alongside her solo performances, Jo Quail collaborates sporadically with other artists, as on Rosebud in 2017 with Eraldo Bernocchi and FM Einheit, then For the Benefit of All in 2020 with T E Morris, and also appears in contexts related to metal, avant-garde and post-rock scenes, notably at the Roadburn Festival.