Jill Lorean
‘Black Dog’
Release: 9 March 2022
Label: Monohands Records
“full of swagger, Jill’s formidable voice wrapping itself into all manner of shapes amid an emphatic backdrop of spiky guitars and powersome drums” – GoldFlakePaint
“Oit’s that voice that first demands attention, pure and keening over low droning noise and rattle. The ghost of Sandy Denny. And then 50 seconds in, there’s a deep bass rumble and we’ve moved into Led Zep territory. The result is deeply thrilling.” – The Herald
“One of my 25 Scottish Artists to watch in 2022…I think she’s on fire right now” – Vic Galloway, BBC Radio Scotland
‘Black Dog’ is final single from Glasgow trio Jill Lorean’s upcoming debut album This Rock, and sees the band carrying a danceable freak folk energy, which adds to the timeless diversity of their singles to date.
An odyssey of sorts, ‘Black Dog’ lures you in with a trance-like violin loop that remains a constant throughout, before crusading through pulsing drumbeats, haunted, gothic guitar lines and playful disco-esque basslines, alongside Jill O’Sullivan’s ethereal vocal delivery, which claws your attention in on the hood laden repetitive chorus line “how can I laugh and how can I cry”.
Jill Lorean as a living breathing thing, featuring Jill O’Sullivan (Sparrow And The Workshop, Three Queens in Mourning, Bdy_Prts) in collaboration with Andy Monaghan (Frightened Rabbit) and drummer Peter Kelly (The Kills, Ladytron), the band is a unique beast inhabiting its own world, incorporating elements of many genres from folk and lo-fi to post-punk and underground rock.
“Black Dog’ is like being on a consciousness-bending, self-seeking quest. It’s a lucid dream-like adventure where a godlike figure attempts to grant all of a persons wishes by carving them all kinds of exciting things out of the clouds. But a sad dog keeps appearing so the deity swallows the sky not understanding that the person wanted to confront the whole spectrum of their emotions, including the sad dog chasing them around.”
“I worked with Pete (Kelly) on this dance project and he would do these fills and I just wanted to dance suddenly. And I like that he did that over the ‘Black Dog’, there is this slight freak folky vibe going on. And it could go down a Fairport Convention, sort of route, but it doesn’t. He brings it into this transient style. And I love it. It was not what I was expecting. I like the unexpected. I like to feel surprised, I want people listening to it to feel alive and awake.”
