Haunting and haunted: Quade launch new album Nacre at The Island

Pensive, swelling, sliding, blossoming, deep-rooted, songs like these surely take time to emerge. It’s easy to imagine that the band have trekked out into the hills and valleys, into the beechwoods, following some muddy track or deep, opaque watercourse, and unearthed the fragments and fabric of their sounds, shaking off the leaves, waking them up slowly, bringing them to life by a crackling fire somewhere under the trees.

This leaning into nature and place feels like an intrinsic part of their work, made visible and audible earlier this year when Quade wrote and performed a live re-scoring of Derek Jarman’s 1971 super-8 short Journey to Avebury at Bristol’s Cube cinema; a spellbinding event that brought their music into dialogue with the crackled landscape of rural southwest England in high summer.

It follows that Quade’s album launch – self-organised and with support from fellow Bristol musicians Foot Foot and O.G. Jigg – was one that felt absolutely not-to-be-missed.

The Island, an arts and event space in the Old Bridewell police station, is by far the most singular venue I’ve been to in Bristol (even more so than the crypt at The Mount Without where I first saw Quade back in 2022), and one where music and setting permeate one another. Down a flight of stairs, past some ominous-looking dark corridors, through a courtyard, and past a sign pointing to “Cells,” the room where tonight’s bands were playing was long and thin like a tunnel – so unless you were at the very front, you saw nothing except the silhouettes of people in front of you, bright lights piercing through the gaps. The effect was striking and very atmospheric, and it forced you to listen more attentively.

I’d arrived too late to catch Foot Foot, which was completely my loss. I’ve seen them a handful of times and they’re always impressive; my friend reckoned this was the best he’d ever seen them play. I did catch the end of O.G. Jigg’s hypnotic, repetitive crunching bells and looped instruments, a real treat and a sound that was all the more intense for the fact that I couldn’t see a thing.

In the break, most of the crowd squeezed into the tiny courtyard, which quickly filled up with conversation, cigarette smoke, and scattered prison jokes. It was clear to see how well-attended the show was from here, and there was a strong presence of fellow musicians and regular gig-goers, pointing to solid support within this part of the Bristol music community.

Back inside, I staked out my spot at the front, keen not to miss a moment. Quade soundchecked, then disappeared for a while. “We’re on Island time,” another friend pointed out as we all patiently sardined. But the short wait built only the right kind of suspense. On stage, a makeshift wooden plinth was topped with an odd sculpture, a cube-like frame with optical-illusion angles that, I was told, was created especially for the live shows. Behind it, a searing stage light blinked at us as we waited, the effect like a searchlight, like a lighthouse. 

Before long, the band members – Matt, Leo, Tom, and Barney – took their places amid rising loops of noise before launching into The Balance, the hushed and shadowy cut previously released as a single and now serving as the Nacre album opener.

And the set unfolded, revealing the intricacies and variances in the new offering: the familiar moody hues, the understated bass and careful vocals, but also stretches of pure energy, at times frenetic, at times lighter, lifting. Samples of speech and acousmatic noise were woven in with the violin, synth, and drums, often framed with the cassette player’s clunk. My own favourite track, Piles Copse, appeared early in the set with its vocal melody liturgical and chant-like, even more arresting in real life. Stretching Out came in airier, music to move to, bright against the glowering Measure and Of the Source.

Having moved further back to save our eardrums from the volume, we stood in the midst of densely packed bodies as dazzling blue lights flashed around the room, the dark figures in front all we could see. I had the strange sensation of one of those dreams where something wild is happening, but you’re completely calm. It called to mind a disaster situation with the blue lights of attendant emergency services – and yet we were enveloped in a sense of the sublime.

Quade closed their set to spirited applause (and the heartfelt “Fuck yeeaaah, Quade!”), and we were briskly encouraged to leave; if not by the long arm of the law, at least by an efficient security guard. Going back up the stairs and onto the street was like stepping out of the cinema and back into mundane reality. The evening had felt like a mind-shifting experience, truly something we’d look back and remember. That first Quade album, that launch show, that beautifully haunting and haunted set. All lifeblood and negative space. All shadow and light.

Photography courtesy of Tom Whitson.