QNP – Page 4 – Quicksilver Night

New Music! “Presque Vu”

Posted on May 3, 2019May 7, 2019 by Warren Russell

Presque Vu, October Skies, & Homecoming

Available at digital outlets everywhere, Quicksilver Night’s “Presque Vu” mini EP is a trio of drivingly melodic songs, progressive but rooted in classic rock with Celtic overtones and Gothic undercurrents. Go to https://quicksilvernight.hearnow.com/presque-vu

All three songs feature Meagan Finning on vocals and Jason Cale on lead guitar, details below.

The title track “Presque Vu” describes the sense of impending change, the feeling that some almost seen truth is about to make itself known, that some life-altering event is about to occur. “Still I can’t help but feel there’s more intended for me by this life.”

Celtic-tinged with classic rock roots, “October Skies” is about the sense of home as a place where one’s very bones seem to resonate with the landscape. I wrote it to describe my distant childhood home in the Allegheny foothills, the overwhelming feeling of belonging there when I visit and the absolute surety that I will return someday for good.

“Homecoming” speaks to mortality and nostalgia when a return to a childhood home is necessitated by the death of a close family member. “Stand in the open doorway. Breathe of the dust and shadows and then say goodbye to the ghosts that fill this room, turn and walk away…”

The ringing crystalline timbre of Meagan Finning’s voice can be found throughout much the Quicksilver Night catalog going back to the beginning and was last heard on Quicksilver Night’s 2016 single “Exeunt” as she had moved away during post-production. Happily for us here at Quicksilver Night she’s back in her hometown of Newport News, VA now and singing once again.

Jason Cale is a singer/songwriter and guitarist from South Mississippi. After traveling the world performing all styles of music he now makes his home in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Eclectic beyond measure and a consummate professional, he regularly performs throughout the region with different groups in various configurations in a dizzying array of musical styles.

Meagan Finning performed lead and harmony vocals throughout the album

Jason Cale performed lead solo guitars throughout the album along with acoustic guitar on “October Skies” and backing vocals on “Presque Vu”

Warren Russell performed rhythm guitars and everything else throughout the album, real or virtual, including harmony fill guitars on “Presque Vu”

Music & Lyrics by Warren Russell (ASCAP)

Recorded by Alex O’Loughlin at Sandcastle Records in Nashville, TN and Jason Cale at Crabhouse studio in Hampton, VA

Mastered by Borislav Dimitrov (aka Boro) at HiZ Productions, Los Angeles, CA

Produced by Warren Russell and Alex O’Loughlin

BONUS! Direct download of the “Presque Vu” mini EP at bandcamp via https://quicksilvernightproductions.bandcamp.com/album/quicksilver-night-presque-vu-mini-ep comes with a lyric booklet and a free bonus track of Quicksilver Night’s 2016 single “Exeunt” featuring Meagan Finning on vocals and Milt Gore on lead guitar.

Nascent Echo

Posted on April 26, 2019April 26, 2019 by Warren Russell

…An Oral History

This is a picture of my good friend Al “Lavaman” Murdoch wearing a Quicksilver Night T-shirt as he wields his guitar in service to the Quicksilver Night catalog. Sadly he has largely retired from recording projects for personal reasons that are not mine to divulge.

Lavaman’s ample contributions to Quicksilver Night include the songs Precipice, Navigation, Sojourner, Nihil Tactum, Legerdemain, and Chrysalis. You can also his amazing fretwork on our short-lived side-project MurdRuss Intentions with As Proteus Falls, Better Than Life, Salient, and Singularity.

You can listen to all of these at digital retailers everywhere (and four of them are also on the “Reliquary” CD) BUT one song we never officially released – and one of the best, really – is the instrumental “Nascent Echo”. It’s not officially available anywhere (although it’s likely been pirated somewhere) but you can ONLY listen to it here. Check it out!

We recorded this in Arlington, VA. My friend Brian Archer helped me convert the MIDI tracks to audio and then recorded me playing several live guitar tracks over it – a relatively new process to me at the time – before we sent it off the Al in Scotland for him to add his guitar to it and mixing it all together. I wish I could remember in greater detail although I can’t imagine those details would be of much interest to you folks.

“Mists of dreams drip along the nascent echo and love no more [end of line]”

“With moments of quiet beauty that cascade into insistently galloping lines of harmonized and contrapuntal guitars, ‘Nascent Echo’ features the stunning fretwork of Scotland’s Al ‘Lavaman’ Murdoch”… so why didn’t we release it? It’s my fault in the final analysis but you can also thank an unnamed executive at NBC Universal. I was/am a big fan of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series and I wanted to use an audio clip from the show within the song. I could’ve made a really strong case for fair use and at any rate I highly doubted they would’ve pursued litigation over such a small thing but I figured I should do the right thing and offer to properly license the clip from NBC Universal. I couldn’t find any sort of licensing link at the time on their site so I sent a general correspondence explaining what I wanted to do and asking for the right person/office to contact. With said information at my disposal I contacted the person in question and the exchange went something very much like this:

Exec: “It will cost you $10,000.”
Me: “What? Why? Audio clips of the length I want seldom go for more than $25 or so at this level of licensing.”

Exec: “It’s for technical assistance.”
Me: “What technical assistance? I don’t need any help with it. I’ve already got the audio clip that I needed and it’s already emplaced in the song. All I want is proper licensing and I’m willing to pay a small fee.”

Exec, again: “The fee is $10,000.”
Me: “That’s ridiculous. I refuse to pay $10,000 for what is essentially zero work on the part of your company for brief audio clip from a show that isn’t even on the air anymore or currently in syndication. Either you guys can profit from this by $200 – my offer although I think even that is far more than it’s worth – or you get nothing, your choice.”

Said executive then engaged me in debate, a lengthy attempt at justification based on investment by NBC Universal, my response to which was essentially all of the reasoning was spurious; they’d already made their money back several times over and it was a matter of public record. The end result of this debate was the executive’s flat reiteration that the fee was $10,000 and my response to the effect that they were insane and that I would give the song away first. We had easily exchanged a dozen or more emails in the process but it all went less than nowhere.

“Nascent Echo” has largely languished since then, hidden in dusty corners of the Internet. I tried offering it in exchange for donations to Friday Night Progressive but it didn’t get a lot of traction; I think it garnered something like $22 at the time. “Nascent Echo” is here now here at this site and available for streaming, gratis, solely via the link above. Enjoy!

Honestly I’m debating whether or not to put “Nascent Echo” on my next all-instrumental CD as a bonus track. We’ll see.

The Faces of Presque Vu

Posted on April 14, 2019April 19, 2019 by Warren Russell

Set to be released on Friday May 3rd, Quicksilver Night’s “Presque Vu” mini EP is a three-song digital-only EP featuring the incredible guitar work of Jason Cale and the gorgeous vocals of Meagan Finning. The driving but melodic trio of songs that comprise the “Presque Vu” mini EP are rooted in classic rock with Celtic overtones and Gothic undercurrents. Watch for it!

The title track “Presque Vu” describes the sense of impending change, the feeling that some almost seen truth is about to make itself known. “October Skies” is about the sense of home as a place where one’s very bones seem to resonate with the landscape. “Homecoming” speaks to mortality and nostalgia when a return to a childhood home is necessitated by the death of a close family member.

The music will come to you very soon but I thought perhaps I’d share some pictures and biographical information here and now so you can put faces to the names.