Quint

Sausage Machine London


How do they do it? I hear the question asked several times during Quint's inspired performance and it doesn't just refer to their ingenious arrangements. There's a much more important conjuring trick that Quint do brilliantly: making often intricate, always finely detailed music sound direct, urgent and shockingly powerful.
Quint's focal point is singer/guitarist Sally Young, who once made savage, jagged sounds as one-third of the cruelly underrated Ut. Now she's found some stunningly skilled new colleagues, among them violinist Jane Pickup and trumpeter Andrew Blick, who create a seemingly endless variety of rich, constantly changing textures.
The raging, visceral fire of Young's former band hasn't left her. The beauty and the beast co-exsist in Quint; often both will appear in a single song. "Mahler's Shoes", for instance is largely built around a lovely descending instrumental swoop, but it ends wildly, with noise and chaos.
Sometimes they keep things reletively simple. "Blueprint To A Blackout" is stark and stuccato, a panic attack in song. "Can't Get You" is a story of obsession that reveals the range of Young's voice; from smoky croon to a furious cry. Then it's all over, way too soon and I spend much of the next two hours listening to different people telling me that, like me, they can't quite believe just how great Quint really are.
This band remind you how conformist and cowardly most pop music is, while simultaneously offering a glorious alternative. They're graceful and brutal, seductive then savage.
How do they do it?

DAVE JENNINGS

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