Introducing: Gates Of Light

Above: Brian Sweeney

After the success of their debut album, Gates of Light returns with Gates of Light II—a deeply personal and sonically expansive follow-up, set for release on Valentine’s Day 2025 via Last Night From Glasgow. This time, the project unfolds across three serialised EPs, each rooted in a different city—Glasgow, Paris, and London—showcasing singer-songwriter Louise Quinn’s collaborations with producers Finlay MacDonald, Kid Loco, and Scott Fraser.

Blending dream-pop, glitchy psychedelia, and raw storytelling, the album is both a love letter to musical connection and a reflection on resilience. From themes of loss and healing to rekindled creative energy, Gates of Light II captures the beauty that emerges from life’s fractures.

With praise from The Guardian, NME, and The Line of Best Fit, and visual contributions from acclaimed artists Tim Saccenti and Studio Build, the album cements Gates of Light as a collective that thrives on collaboration, emotion, and sonic exploration. As Louise Quinn puts it, “This collaboration has been a real lifeline—a nourishing, beautiful creative energy in my life.”

Louise, you’ve spoken about the deeply personal journey of creating Gates of Light II amidst your responsibilities as a single parent. How did your experiences with your family, especially your twins, shape the themes and energy of this album?

My son and daughter gave me a ton of courage and fearlessness which I just didn’t have before. They were my A&R team, my stylists and cheerleaders. When a new mix would come in from Fin or Scott or Jean-Yves (Kid Loco) I would road test it at our frequent kitchen discos. They loved the music videos and would ask to watch them over and over again like the teletubbies. 

Because my son and daughter were only two when my marriage broke down they required a lot of care and attention; my son hadn’t been diagnosed with his autism yet but both were high needs children in different ways. This made me very hyper-focused when it came to writing and recording; I just didn’t have the time to mess about like I did before I was a mother; I just had to get it down and get it done. Watch how quickly any new mum drinks a cup of tea or coffee; very quickly because you have no time.  

My parents were a great support too, especially my mum; although distance and circumstance got in the way of them being there physically for me; I speak to my mum most days. My mum and dad are both musical and creative although being from a working class background their jobs didn’t reflect that (my mum was a cleaner and my dad a bricklayer) but they were always very supportive of me as an artist. 

New friends and mum friends who came into my life became like family and I will always be grateful for the support and encouragement they gave me during that critical time. They brought a positive energy to my creative work as they took the time to listen and helped me heal.

My path to motherhood was long and complicated with a lot of loss and heartache along the way. I never thought it would happen for me and now I am a mother I feel so blessed; my son and daughter are incredible and beautiful souls; I love them with all my heart and soul and I feel so incredibly blessed and lucky that I get to be their mother. Also, when you’re a mum you don’t give a damn about what anyone else thinks and you develop near superhero level powers of problem solving because you would do anything/ fix anything for your kids. 

The album is a compilation of tracks from three different EPs—Glasgow, Paris, and London editions—produced by different artists. How did each producer influence the sound and direction of the songs on Gates of Light II?

Fin MacDonald who produced the Glasgow Edition EP got the ball rolling massively by encouraging me to record my ideas as voice notes on my phone. When he started working with me I was so traumatised and terrified and he really helped me get back on my feet artistically. He is a great musician and has a studio with vintage synths and creates incredible work as Wor_kspace. We share a lot of the same musical influences and it was amazing when he would send me the tracks to sing on and I could hear a lot of those influences; when he sent me his arrangement of Quiet Little Miracle I could hear Strange Little Girl by The Stranglers which I love. I love how pop the Glasgow Edition EP turned out! It’s the most pop thing either of us has ever produced… Fin also arranged for producer Jim McEwan to come to my flat and record the vocals on his amazing valve mic (as used by Joni Mitchell and made of Russian submarines!). We had so little time to record but those vocals form the basis of the album. Jean-Yves (Kid Loco) took the vocals and bits of guitar I recorded with Jim and worked with Olaf Hund in a basement in Paris to create the Paris Edition EP. Jean-Yves is of course a bit of a legend and A Grand Love Story remains a classic from that era to this day. I have been lucky enough to sing on Jean-Yves records for many years and spend time with Jean-Yves and his family in Paris. The arrangements on the Paris Edition are really beautiful and tap into all the retro futuristic elements that make Kid Loco records so great and they enhance the songs and the meaning of the songs so exquisitely. There’s a lot of soul in these tracks.

Scott is also from East Kilbride where I come from and very much a kindred spirit. My first collaboration with him on Andrew Weatherall’s Birdcarer vinyl imprint was sort of the catalyst for the whole Gates Of Light project; I met Scott when he was DJing at the Berkeley Suite in Glasgow and we got chatting. He told me he shared a studio with Andrew Weatherall and we ended up collaborating on a track called Together More. Six years after I met Scott he got in touch to say Andrew had remixed the track and was releasing it; he also said Andrew was up DJing at the Berkeley Suite that night; I was thirty-two weeks pregnant with my son and daughter at that time so wasn’t keen to go out clubbing and then Andrew sadly passed after that. But it was Andrew’s approach to music; that it possesses transcendental properties to overcome time and space that really spoke to me during lockdown and inspired me to reach out and connect with this amazing bunch of creatives. Scott has his own studio in London and his production really freed me up as a songwriter; when he sent me the initial track for Advance it really gave me the freedom to experiment and use my voice more like an instrument. The immersive quality of his production really sparks my imagination and go deeper into a melody and lyric. 

Tim Saccenti and Dina Chang (Setta Studio) have been amazing to collaborate with and produced some incredible glitch art images which have articulated the emotional intensity and depth of the tracks. We have been so lucky to have their artistic direction as part of the process; they really have articulated the sound and I have absolutely loved working with them too. 

You mentioned that creating this album during difficult times served as a “life-line” for you. How did the process of collaborating with artists like Scott Fraser, Kid Loco, and Finlay MacDonald help you personally and creatively?

Personally it was a means of connection; after the breakdown of my marriage I was so traumatised and isolated and not sure who I could turn to or trust and then suddenly the universe gifted me these amazing people who were just there for me when I needed support and lifted my spirits when I felt ground down or world weary. They really renewed my faith in people as well as art.

Creatively Scott, Kid Loco and Fin helped rebuild me as a songwriter and creative; when my marriage broke down I had lost not only my life partner but my creative partner too. I had lost all faith in my own abilities and didn’t trust my creative vision like I had before. I hadn’t been single since I was fifteen but the collaboration and connection with Scott, Kid Loco and Fin got me back to that place when I was fifteen again and felt like I could conquer the world and take up space again. 

The track “10,000 Years” holds significant emotional weight for you, given its connection to both your daughter’s birthday and the breakdown of your marriage. Could you walk us through how this song came to life, and what it represents to you?

It was a difficult time, it was our daughter Freya’s birthday and she would have been five at the time had she not been stillborn. I was also grieving the breakdown of my marriage and just having to get on with raising our twins on my own. A lot of the Gates Of Light songs are self-soothing and I think it was my brain’s way of coping and continuing to care for my children despite being so broken. I’ve been reading some of Nick Cave’s writing on grief and like he says when you love a lot you feel loss a lot more; but that’s just the deal with being human. In some ways grief connects you more to the universe and gives you this euphoric feeling of being insignificant but part of something much bigger. I think it’s the same place where songs come from and when you tap into that it’s transcendental. 

Scott posted a track he was working on in his studio in London and it just seemed to be made for the song that was forming in my head. It was the middle of the night and I sent it as a voice memo, acapella and eerie. Scott sent the track and I went into Solas studios with Jim McEwan who recorded the vocals; we were both amazed at the result; like it shouldn’t work but it did and had this hypnotic almost mystical quality. I love the track now and it seems to have caught the ear of listeners too; in these time and attention deficient times it’s good if people can tap into the same place where the track originated from for nine minutes and reconnect with themselves and the flow.

You’ve said this may be the last Gates of Light album. Looking back at the entire journey, what do you hope listeners take away from this album, and how do you see your future as an artist evolving from here?

I’ve been getting great feedback from the album; the Last Night From Glasgow subscribers got it before the official release and they are a great group of listeners and vinyl aficionados; a lot of them are saying the record has taken them places where they haven’t been musically before so I absolutely love that! The circumstances  that the album was created in were so unusual and pushed us all as artists into places we had never been before too! 

I think the extremities of my personal situation feed into the lyrics and atmosphere; when Better Now was released digitally on the Glasgow Edition EP it was most listened to in Kiev in the Ukraine. My late and much loved friend Louise Doig accidentally helped produce that track; Fin had mistitled the track which was intended for another song and I was visiting my friend Louise and her husband Rod in Carnoustie with the kids when he sent it. I started singing Better Now over the wrong track and Louise started dancing and she said ‘What is that? That’s great!’ So I thought I’d better record it as Louise had always listened to my music and encouraged me throughout my life since I met her at the RSAMD or The Royal Conservatoire as it is now known in Glasgow. I dedicated the album to her as she very sadly passed away last year. 

Looking to the future everyone is quite rightly wanting to get on with their own stuff again and I guess I should too. Last Night From Glasgow amazingly are keen to continue working with me and I can’t stop writing songs so I guess I’ll be putting out another record as soon as I can get it together. The songs I’ve been writing are a lot more hopeful and joyous and I can’t wait to get into the studio to record them.

I’m sure I’ll continue to work with all my collaborators; I co-wrote a song for the new Kid Loco album called The Crown; the album also features Horace Andy, Don Letts and Lex Amor. I love Fin’s new Wor_kspace tracks too and hopefully we’ll get a chance to work together again at some point. When Scott and I shot the video for the latest GOL single Advance we looked so great in our goth vampire costumes we said we have to make an album based on that look! Move over Andrew Eldtrich and Patricia Morrison…