With his four song EP, ‘Renaissance’, Quarry brings us mid 2000s sensibilities with a more contemporary twist. Pounding straight out of the gate, the EP is the follow-up for his critically acclaimed album, ‘Positioning The Sun’.
Quarry, the moniker of Italian-born British Vittorio Tolomeo, is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter. Nowadays splitting his time between London and Milan, he started out playing drums and guitar, before joining a few Italian bands, and writing the theme song for a popular radio show.
‘Renaissance’ is a grungy post-punk style release, with Quarry re-imagining the genres, imbuing them with with his own sound. It’s impossible to resist the raw energy from the tracks, which have been combined with melodies both dreamy and ambient.
Opening with ‘Wild New Start’, the first thing that the listener recognises is the powerful bass and strident rhythms. Quarry’s vocals come through strong and emotive, accompanied by what sounds like a tom-tom drum, which further adds to the powerful beat. Multi-layered vocals fill the soundspace, with tambourine, cymbals, and rhythm guitar completing the mix. Quarry’s vocals have an urgency to them that is persuasive and irresistable.
Second track, ‘Up On A Mountain Of A Cool World’ feels like a freshly-discovered track from Psychedelic Furs, and definitely deserves to be listened to through headphones, eyes closed, to truly dissect the layers of instrumentation, which are every bit like segments of a sedimentary rock: Bass and rhythm guitar, drums and Quarry’s vocals work together to produce a cohesive whole.
The primary concept and recurring theme throughout ‘Renaissance’ is that of an astronaut’s vision of Earth from space, as they ruminate about a rebirth of humanity, and is most clearly expressed in the title track, with lines like, “can you feel the space between earth and outer space”.
Quarry explains,
“The song titles, ‘Renaissance’, ‘Up On A Mountain Of A Cool World’, ‘Wild New Start’, and ‘Find A New Star’, reflect the path I was on while writing the songs. Watching peaceful lights every night on Earth, heading toward an ideal cool place where life is almost gratifying for all, feeling good and healing from worries and barriers, seeing people less focused on bending on their phones, liking and commenting whatever and mostly living other people’s lives on social media, were visions colliding in a subliminal wish of living in a less superficial, apparently comfortable and fast but definitely uncaring world. I believe this kind of yearning gave the songs a huge sense of space, both sonically and lyrically.”
The release of the ‘Renaissance’ EP comes ahead of Quarry’s US tour this year. ‘Renaissance’ is out now through Lowfieye Records. You can find out more about Quarry and his music online on his official website, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music
Comments