Jo Quail Talks New Album, 2025 UK Tour And More

‘Notan’ is the seventh album from composer and sound designer Jo Quail—a work of striking contrast and graceful power. She kindly chatted to us and it is a fascinating conversation:

What is your earliest musical memory?

I clearly remember sitting next to my mum at our piano and playing a ‘duet’ with her, probably around the age of 3, my part was playing middle C and I loved it! That feeling of connection through music, of music forming another way we can communicate, it’s so important to me and I believe this understanding began for me at that moment. 

When did you begin songwriting?

I started writing music very early on thanks to the incredible musical education I received at the Centre for Young Musicians. From the beginning, we were encouraged to compose and improvise, and we had a class each week named General Musicianship, which focused on what I now realise was / is creativity, imagination, and storytelling through sound. That approach shaped everything I do now – as a composer, sound designer, and performer. I genuinely believe it’s the most vital part of any music education, and I have huge gratitude to the amazing team of teachers who opened up this world to me, I’d like to make mention here especially of Simon Foxley, who is sadly no longer with us, but has had probably the single most powerful influence on all I do today. 

You have your seventh album ‘Notan’ being released on 12th September 2025 on AdderStone Records. How did you want to approach the making of the album?

That’s a great question – I didn’t actually ‘want’ to make it at all to begin with. ‘Notan’ began as a series of improvisations that I then orchestrated for symphony orchestra. This will be the following album ‘Ianus’ (due out in 2026) and I’ll be recording this with a symphony orchestra in October this year, something I’m hugely excited about! Originally that was going to be the sum total of these improvisations, but then I began to experiment with solo, looped ideas stemming from these pieces, and ‘Notan’ was born. ‘Notan’ and ‘Ianus’ share four pieces, and it’s been such a wonderful exploration to begin from the improvisations, create the fully orchestrated versions, then take the essence of these back to my solo performance. It’s also much easier to tour as a soloist than with a symphony orchestra…

Where did you record the album and who produced it?

I recorded it at AdderStone Studios in London, which is actually just my music room next to the kitchen! I do everything here at home – it’s a modestly equipped studio set up, with everything I need to make my albums, and I find it much more relaxing to work at my own (slow!) pace. As for “production” it depends how you define it. I produce my music in the sense that I write everything, create all the sounds and sound design, and shape the mix for live performance – things like panning decisions and the overall arc of the pieces. The album ‘Notan’ was mixed and mastered by the AMAZING Jaime Gomez-Arellano (aka Gomez) at orgonestudios.com. He did such an incredible job enhancing the shape and weight of the tracks, applying some of his signature techniques to bring them even more vividly to life, and giving everything an extra level of clarity and definition. He’s absolutely brilliant.

Do you have any interesting, funny or memorable stories from the recording sessions?

Ask me that in October when I’ve recorded the orchestral version! Funny stories in ‘Notan’ are pretty few as it was a solitary process, but definitely if there were any they would likely involve my cat. I’ve plenty of memorable moments from some of my other albums, Vito Guerrieri walloping the tam-tam for the opening of ‘The Cartographer’ being one, whereupon everyone in the control room simultaneously pulled the ‘metal face’ (classic moment!). I’ll never forget recording Invocation vocals with Maria (Franz) at Lava Studios in Copenhagen and hearing these tracks soar to places I never even imagined. I do recall my husband and daughter enquiring if I was OK after I’d accidentally left the monitors on when I was working on the sound design for ‘Macha’ from ‘Invocation’ and I was repeatedly playing Jake Harding performing the most majestic shouting…

Who were the musicians who performed on the album with you?

Just me. Cello, electric cello and piano.

Did you use any particular instruments, microphones, recording equipment to help you get a particular sound/tone for the record?

I used my Starfish electric cello as usual, as well as my acoustic cello. For the acoustic, I use a DPA mic in live performance, but when recording, I prefer a bit more space so I go with the Rode NT2000. It’s technically a vocal mic, but it works beautifully for what I need. I’ve got a few Shure SMs too, but the Rode is my go-to.

For the piano, I used the NT2000 again, just stuck it inside the piano, balancing the mic stand arm on a cushion (a state-of-the-art studio technique, of course). I managed to capture the darker tones of my Broadwood upright, along with the natural pedal sounds, which was exactly what I’d hoped for.

All my sounds are created using my Boss GT1000 multi-effects board – just that, nothing else. For live performance, I use my Boss RC600 Loop Station and occasionally use a few of its onboard effects – compression, beat slicers, etc. to fully translate the sound to stage. For the recording of ‘Notan’, I played all the loops through in real time. It’s not a live-looped album, but if phrase 1 on loop 3 appears 24 times, I played it 24 times if you see what I mean. I wanted to bring as much of a live energy to the record as possible, while still respecting the demands of making a studio album.

Which of your new album tracks hear you at your a) happiest, b) angriest and c) most reflective?

I’d think that First Rain is the most reflective, the end of KingFisher is probably the most euphoric.  As for the heaviest, I’d say Butterfly Dance though not in an angry way. I don’t really channel anger in music. This piece is all about the Matriarch’s presence: strong, assured, and commanding. It’s inspired by La Mariposa – a story I love, where a ceremonial dance is performed only by the oldest women, those who’ve truly earned the right. That sense of earned authority runs right through the piece and was there from the very first improvised take.

 

You have also released your new single Rex. What was the story/inspiration behind the track?

Rex was originally written in 2010 and is the opening track on my first album ‘From The Sea’. At the time, I was still finding my footing as both a soloist and composer. While I’m still proud of that original version, it carried a timidity and fragility that reflected where I was creatively and personally.

When I first composed Rex or Rex Infractus as it was called back then, I often thought of the energy of The Moon card from the major arcana in the Tarot – something about what’s hidden, illusory, or not quite as it seems. Over the years, as I became more grounded in my work, other pieces took its place in my setlists, and Rex sat untouched for a long while. It wasn’t until the first lockdown, while preparing for the Roadburn online festival, that I revisited it. As I played, an entirely new second section emerged – almost fully formed. Fittingly, the card that follows The Moon in the Tarot is The Sun, which symbolises clarity and illumination.

While Rex isn’t exactly a trance banger (!), it now carries a sense of triumph – hard-won and hard-felt. The piece has matured, it feels grounded, even majestic, and it’s deeply empowering to play live.

 

Does the album’s title have a specific meaning/significance?

Yes – ‘Notan’ refers to the Japanese artistic principle of light and dark, and how these opposites interact to create balance and form. There are many interpretations of this concept, but at its core, it’s about the interplay of presence and absence. I chose ‘Notan’ as the title because, while this album is more distilled and restrained than ‘Ianus’, it is by no means less developed.

Was it a difficult album to write?

Not especially, though the direction shifted a few times along the way. Once I committed to making ‘Notan’, I began by exploring which pieces from ‘Ianus’ might translate. At first, I imagined including them all but it quickly became clear that ‘Notan’ had its own identity – I couldn’t (and shouldn’t) try to crowbar in every track.

Instead, I chose to include A Leaf, And Then A Key, a piece written entirely on acoustic cello – no looping, no effects. This piece was in fact the starting point for both ‘Notan’ and ‘Ianus’; I’d been circling around its themes and motifs for years, and it felt right to anchor ‘Notan’ with it.

The other standalone piece is First Rain, for piano. That one arrived almost fully formed. I’d sat at the piano to work through some harmonic movement in another track, and First Rain just appeared—I’ve never played piano on an album before and it’s one that will naturally appear with less frequency live (I’ve enough to carry around with two cellos etc!) however when the opportunity presents then I’d love to play it for you.

Who designed the album artwork?

Costin Chioreanu created the artwork for the album and also for the single Rex. Costin is incredible to work with—deeply intuitive and endlessly imaginative. He took my brief and interpreted it with such depth and clarity, bringing a completely new dimension to the album.

What I love about his work is that he doesn’t just illustrate the music—he expands it. His artwork for ‘Notan’ captures the tension and harmony between light and dark in such a profound way, it was a true collaboration, and I’m so grateful and humbled by the vision he has, and the art he has created for ‘Notan’.

Where is your hometown and could you please describe it in five words?

I live in Woolwich, in South East London. Five words, that’s tough! OK, Evolving, Diverse, Historic, Creative, Home. How’s that? I love living here, it’s the whole world in one small area of London and it’s beautiful. Where I actually live, the street I’m on, is very high so you can see the whole City, and also ancient oak forests. It’s part of what inspired Notan, and my brief for Costin; I can see oaks in front of the city, so in a sense it feels as though history stands in front of development, not the other way round. Costin captured this beautifully in his artwork.

Do you have any live dates planned in the UK/Europe in 2025/2026?

Yes I do! In September I’ll be touring in England and Scotland, with my headline tour to celebrate the release of Notan. I’ll be in Manchester on the 12th, Newcastle on the 13th, then Glasgow 14th, Edinburgh 15th, Nottingham 16th, Bristol 17th, Leicester 18th, Southampton 19th and finishing in London on the 20th. I’ve then got an EU run with God Is An Astronaut in October, and a very large orchestral concert in Enschede, Holland on the 29th November. This is a very exciting concert as we’ll be playing all of Invocation, Supplication, Causleen’s Wheel (Exsolve), plus a brand new commissioned piece to celebrate 700 years of Enschede, and I’ve got an orchestra of over 90 players, it’s immense! I’ll be joined by Maria Franz, Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari and Lucie Dehli on vocals, and Tom Atherton on percussion, all under the baton of Jos Pijnappel, and I’d love you to join us! In March 2026 I have an EU headline tour as well, so it’s pretty busy! All dates and tickets are on my website www.joquail.co.uk 

What two things do you hope to have achieved once you have left the stage?

Firstly, I hope to have inspired people – I want them to feel empowered to pursue their own artistic vision. And that doesn’t have to mean just ‘art’ or performing on ‘stages’ – artistry can be in baking a cake, making a sandwich, or simply doing everyday things with meaning. If I can inspire someone to create music or pick up the cello (which a few people have, thankfully!), that’s wonderful. Whether through my music, my story, or the energy I bring to live performances, I’d love to bring some light, maybe curiosity, courage, or confidence – to help others follow their own path.

Secondly, I hope to have created a space where people feel connected and understood, even if only for a moment. Music is a powerful way to break down barriers, and I want to create a shared space without boundaries, somewhere we can truly connect.

 Do you have any favoured stage instruments, effects, pedals, microphones etc?

Yes! I use only BOSS pedals, and only two at that, the GT1000 multi effects board and the RC600 loop station. https://www.boss.info/global/ 

I’ve worked with BOSS pedals forever, from the earliest loop pedal all the way through, and I love to demo and workshop what I do with this pedal. I’ve one coming up at the end of August in London, keep an eye on my website please! www.joquail.co.uk 

Cosmic Ears make my In Ear Monitors, and they are exceptional, second to none. I use their flagship C8s, and the quality of sound, and the separation and clarity, is extraordinary. Lovely people too! I’d recommend Cosmic Ears to anyone keen to explore IEMs. It’s essential for me, for sound design and also because in live looping I often have polyrhythmic structures running, click tracks, L and R feed and direct feed too and I need to be able to monitor and isolate particular moments, cues, whatever; the C8s handle this pretty complex requirement beautifully. https://cosmicears.com/collections/best-iems-for-strings

I use D’Addario strings for both my cellos, Kaplans usually with a preference for heavy weight as they handle the scordatura I frequently use very well, and I can often be changing tuning up to three times in a set. D’Addario have a wonderful array of strings from entry level to top professional, and again I’d recommend them as the first strings to try out, whatever genre you’re playing. They also have a low F for anyone interested in that side of things – I personally prefer to have standard strings and use octave pedals but it’s great that this string is available! https://www.daddario.com/products/orchestral/

At home, as I mentioned, I use the Rode NT2000 for recording, and DPA 4099 for some live work.

You are given the opportunity to write the score for a film adaptation of a novel that you enjoy. Which novel is it and why?

That’s a really interesting question. I’d actually choose something that isn’t a novel but a work of great beauty – T.S. Eliot’s Little Gidding. I’m certainly not the first to set it to music or cite it as an inspiration, but my relationship to this extraordinary work is deeply personal.

There’s a musicality in Eliot’s language that I find deeply moving. Sometimes I read Little Gidding and simply let the sound of the words wash over me, like bathing in them. Other times, I focus closely on particular lines and images – I ‘know’ this, do you know what I mean? So evocative, and so profound, a score already there somehow. 

It’s also quite fitting given we were talking about ‘Notan’ earlier, not to pair the two together but both discuss an interplay between light and shadow, and so I feel in some ways I’m constantly creating a film score for a film that’s yet to be made. 

Who are some of your musical influences? Do you have any recommendations?

That’s a big question! Many composers have stayed close to me since day one, Penderecki, Bach (of course), and Kodály. Learning his solo cello sonata – which is still very much an ongoing process! – was a total game changer for me in terms of both cello technique and scoring. Veljo Tormis has also been a huge influence, especially Curse Upon Iron, which opened up so many ideas for vocal writing. Some of those ideas made their way into ‘The Cartographer’, and also into ‘Invocation’.

I’m a huge Mick Gordon fan and constantly strive to bring the same kind of heft to some of my own tracks. Icon of Sin really inspired me – his “metal choir” approach actually sparked the mobile phone choir in ‘Invocation’, where I created a choral texture from many individual mobile phone recordings. I learned a lot about production through that piece as well!

And then, I’m also firmly wedded to ’80s hair metal –  Cinderella, W.A.S.P., any of that era, really! More recently, thanks to my daughter, we’ve had a big K-pop phase in the house, and I’ve found a lot of inspiration there too – particularly in the production values and techniques. It’s a constant learning curve, and I love every part of it.

What two pieces of advice do you have for a novice musician?

Firstly, don’t ever view yourself as a novice. Doesn’t matter if you’ve just put the bow on the string, or you’re playing Dvořák, we are all doing exactly the same thing, which is to try to convey energy and emotion through sound. 

I’ve plenty of things I could go on to say, but perhaps the most useful, or certainly the thing I found useful, was to watch performers play their instrument. We can glean so much understanding from watching rather than having things explained verbally, for example the shape of the hand as the bow changes direction, the gentle rise of the elbow and not the shoulder when we want to play higher up, all that kind of stuff is not ‘taught’ so much as ‘experienced’. When you get down the road a bit, I like to swap things round so if I have a technical difficulty I approach it from a musical perspective, and if I have something that is musically difficult to interpret or translate then I look at what is going on technically or physically and see if I can find the path that way. I hope that’s useful! 

What makes Jo Quail happy and what makes you unhappy?

Loads of things make me happy, family, walking by the sea, the rain, finding the best parking spot, someone smiling in the street. Litter dropping makes me very unhappy. Cooking makes me happy. But you can’t cook if you are unhappy to begin with; I believe we put energies in the food we create so I would probably not go litter picking before creating a good stew! 

 

Feature Image Photo Credit: Morris Longfellow

Jo Quail’s new single ‘Rex’ is out now. 

Purchase/Listen Here: https://linktr.ee/JoQuail