Jo Quail signs to ByNorse and releases first extract of The Cartographer

Prog Award winning cellist and composer Jo Quail has signed a new record deal with the ByNorse label, home to the likes of Norwegian folk-proggers Wardruna and Hugsjá.

At the same time Quail has released the first snippet of music for The Cartographer, a specially commissioned piece of music that she will perform live at Roadburn Festival in April and which will be released on May 6. You can watch the clip, part of a of documentary series on the new work, below.

"I am thrilled to be signing with By Norse Music for the release of The Cartographer," says Quail. "I have such enormous respect for their willingness to support those of us who are not easily categorised, or who work across different genres. They work with some amazing musicians that I really admire and take a lot of inspiration from, and it is an honour for me, for The Cartographer, to be welcomed into this prestigious family.”

Roadburn themselves commissioned Quail to create a new piece of music especially for the event to explore the space where classical instrumentation and contemporary heavy music intersect. Quail will perform it live at the 013 venue in Tilburg, the Netherlands this coming April.

“What makes music heavy?" she continues. "In my opinion, as an artist and composer straddling both classical and contemporary genres the concept of heaviness in music is experienced via the intention of the composer, and then the delivery of the performance. Arguably heaviness is an emotional concept, reaching far beyond the confines of volume, speed and instrumentation.”

Quail will support Wardruna on their upcoming UK tour in March and will also appear at this year's ArcTanGent Festival.

The Cartographer will be available as CD digipack with 8-page booklet, limited coloured 2x12” LP (online exclusive), regular black 2x12” LP and digital.

Pre-order The Cartographer.

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.