Listening to The Foel Tower feels like tuning a weathered old radio – you’ll be rewarded for applying patience and concentration. On this second album, experimental Bristol four-piece Quade make a virtue of the slow build; Barney Matthews’ bassy, cryptic vocals are buried beneath shivering cymbals, gut-rumbling bass and blasts of static, with most of the lyricism left to multi-instrumentalist Tom Connolly’s twisting, agonised, beatific violin.
Like their label mates Moin who describe themselves as “post-whatever”, Quade discard the classic band format for a more organic, intuitive approach. Canada Geese starts with a simple, strummed acoustic guitar and close-quarters detail: distant birdsong, the soft rattle of what could be a washing machine. This intimacy dissolves into grand, threatening post-rock when Matt Griffith’s electronics and Leo Fini’s echoing, distant drums build muscle. “Kill them all,” Matthews mumbles, barely discernible, as Connolly’s strings writhe.
Drawing from folk, jazz, ambient and doom, and inspired by tensions between industry and nature, the album was made in Wales’ Elan Valley (mid-album instrumental highlight Nannerth Ganol judders like a low-flying helicopter) and titled after a building on the Garreg Ddu reservoir, which sends its water on a long journey to Birmingham. There are literary references (Le Guin, Yeats, Thomas) buried in the murk, and mystifying media samples (possibly from meditation app Headspace, and an unnamed actor) to pick apart – but The Foel Tower is no concept album. Its six tracks are searching and emotional, led by heart rather than head. Satisfyingly indecipherable, Quade make music that speaks first to your body, then to your imagination.
