The utterly amazing, undefinable and completely unique Ms. Jo Quail. If you told me 10 years ago that a female classically trained cellist operating solo would become a leading light in our very chauvinistic and small-minded world, I would have laughed at you. But here we are, Jo Quail has managed to carve a place in our world (that says undeterred “Metal as Fuck”) without once changing who or diluting what she’s doing. 

What’s she does do is simply quite remarkable. She creates a sound I cello, catches it and then loops it back. By doing this multiple times she creates her own evocative, dark and sensory backing track over which her cello is able to mournfully tread. It’s one of those cases where you are acutely aware of the mechanics behind what she’s doing but it doesn’t take away any of the wonder of the achievement. 

“The Cartographer” is evocative and minimal. It consists of five distinct movements commissioned for the Roadburn festival. The idea behind it is to explore the heaviness that is at the heart of classical music and to challenge the notions that classical and heavy metal exists in different spaces. It is quite something and it is another album where I still don’t think I’m yet to get the most out of it. Slow burning but utterly worth it.