Slowdive’s Simon Scott reveals himself as Three Quarter Skies

The forthcoming seven-track EP, Universal Flames, is the sound of the project coming into existence, being developed from a recording of a semi-spontaneous live performance that took place at the back end of 2022. Today they share the new single, "On Fire".

“I’d worked on a handful of songs over the course of last year that didn’t really fit Slowdive, so I ‘organically’ debuted them at a club in London called Folklore after a last-minute invite to jump up onstage and play some music,” explains Scott. “I’d not even finished the lyrics for each track, but the journey to the gig became ingrained in the song "On Fire" – which has ended up being our debut single – after a burning building in Old Street held me up and I scribbled the words down in the back of my taxi.”

Since this spontaneous conception, Three Quarter Skies has become a revolving door for other musicians and Simon describes it as “a nebulous project that I intend to not restrict or enforce any creative boundaries on”. One of the guests on the EP is Dottie from Sonic Cathedral labelmates deary, who adds vocals to first song, "Opener".

“My musical tastes and influences just dictate what I write,” he explains. “Using looped beats, modular synths, guitar pedals and vocal processing facilitated the freedom I found jamming and recording in a way that’s free from any boundaries or clear genres," Scott continues. “Flying Saucer Attack, Suicide, The Fall, Neu!, Can, 13th Floor Elevators, Alice Coltrane, John Cage, Black Sabbath and Spacemen 3 are the musical inspirations that immediately leap to mind, but aside from music, relationships feature heavily, such as dictatorships masquerading as democracies or the politics of listening."

“Literature is always feeding into my worldview, too, such as Anna Tsing’s multi-species relationships about entanglements and philosopher Timothy Morton’s work on ecology and perceiving the world of Anthropogenic influences. I also love cinema and visual art, so to work with a talented visual artist such as Innerstrings [Chris Tomsett] is essential for our videos and live shows.”

Three Quarter Skies play their first official live show at the Moor Beer Vaults in London on 27 October, supporting Mildred Maude.