Three Quarter Skies

The project originated in late 2022 after Scott accumulated a number of songs that he felt did not belong within Slowdive. A last-minute invitation to perform at the London venue Folklore gave him an opportunity to test the unfinished material in public. Performing alone with samples, Scott improvised his way through songs whose lyrics and structures were not yet fully completed. Rather than remaining an isolated performance, the experiment provided the foundation for Three Quarter Skies.

One of the pieces developed around the performance became “On Fire.” Scott wrote its lyrics while travelling to the venue after a burning building in London's Old Street delayed his taxi journey. The track became Three Quarter Skies' debut single in September 2023 and introduced a sound in which blurred vocals and heavily processed guitars coexist with repetition, electronics and motorik propulsion.

The project's first extended release, Universal Flames, followed through Sonic Cathedral on October 26, 2023. Built from the semi-improvised material surrounding the original performance, the seven-track recording captured Three Quarter Skies in the process of taking shape rather than presenting a fully predetermined studio project. Its music incorporated droning soundscapes, rhythmic repetition, feedback and ethereal vocals, reflecting influences ranging from Neu! and Flying Saucer Attack to John Cage and Black Sabbath. Dottie of the London dream-pop duo deary contributed vocals to “Opener.”

In December 2023, Three Quarter Skies released “Holy Water,” featuring Rachael Swinton, as part of a limited split Christmas single with deary, whose contribution was a version of The Pretenders' “2000 Miles.” “Holy Water” would subsequently be reworked for Three Quarter Skies' debut full-length album.

During 2024, the project developed from its semi-improvised beginnings into a more focused studio endeavor. This period coincided with the death of Scott's mother, an event that profoundly affected the direction of the music. Rather than responding with conventionally elegiac material, Scott channelled grief, anger, anxiety and frustration into increasingly turbulent compositions dominated by feedback and distorted textures.

The resulting debut album, Fade In, was released by Sonic Cathedral on September 6, 2024. Recorded by Scott at Fenland Feedback Studios in late 2023 and early 2024, the album was produced by Scott and mixed by Scott with David Pearce of Flying Saucer Attack. Antony Ryan mastered the record at RedRedPaw, while Rachael Swinton contributed backing vocals to “Holy Water.”

Fade In contains eight tracks, including the singles “Crows” and “Leave A Light On,” new versions of “Holy Water” and “Pieces Of Roslin,” and a brief interpretation of Nick Drake's “Horn.” The album concludes with the nine-and-a-half-minute “In The Night.” In contrast to the spontaneous origins of Universal Flames, Fade In was conceived as a cohesive album, moving between motorik rhythms, atmospheric electronics, heavily processed vocals, field recordings and large expanses of guitar noise.

Grief became one of the record's central themes, particularly on “Crows,” whose surreal imagery developed from Scott's attempts to process his mother's death. Across the album, moments of melodic clarity repeatedly emerge from and disappear into feedback, reflecting the tension between Scott's background in atmospheric composition and the more confrontational direction of Three Quarter Skies.

Scott's collaboration with David Pearce was particularly significant to the album's development. Pearce's work with Flying Saucer Attack had long been an influence on Scott, and their collaboration reinforced Three Quarter Skies' connection to the British tradition sometimes described as “feedback folk”: music in which folk-like melody, pastoral atmosphere and intimate songwriting are submerged beneath distortion, drone and noise.

Three Quarter Skies continued to expand its catalog following Fade In. In November 2024, “Superwoman” was paired with a remix of “On Fire” by Sonic Boom, the electronic musician and producer known for Spacemen 3 and Spectrum. In April 2025, Los Angeles darkwave duo Drab Majesty contributed a remix of “Crows,” further connecting Three Quarter Skies with contemporary shoegaze, psychedelic and post-punk communities.

The On Fire EP followed on June 6, 2025. The release revisited material from the project's formative period through alternate versions and remixes, extending Scott's interest in allowing compositions to evolve after their original release rather than treating recordings as fixed endpoints.

Although Three Quarter Skies is principally Scott's project, he describes it as a band rather than simply another solo alias. Its recordings and performances allow material to be developed collaboratively while retaining his central role as songwriter, vocalist, instrumentalist and producer. The distinction also separates Three Quarter Skies from Scott's extensive solo catalog, which has generally emphasized field recording, environmental sound and abstract ambient composition.

The project nevertheless retains a strong connection to those practices. Scott's longstanding fascination with environmental recording and sound manipulation informs the spaces surrounding the songs, while his experience as a drummer gives even the project's most abstract material a pronounced rhythmic foundation. Motorik repetition can coexist with freeform noise, folk-like melody with modular synthesis, and carefully constructed studio detail with the unpredictability of improvisation.

Three Quarter Skies consequently occupies a distinct position within Scott's body of work. While inevitably connected to Slowdive through his history and approach to texture, the project provides a more personal and volatile outlet, drawing equally upon his experimental solo recordings and his influences from Krautrock, noise, ambient music, psychedelia and British underground guitar music.

What began with a collection of songs that did not fit elsewhere—and a largely improvised performance of unfinished material—developed into a project with its own identity. From the exploratory Universal Flames through the grief, anger and dense feedback of Fade In and the subsequent reinterpretations of its material, Three Quarter Skies represents Simon Scott's attempt to bring songwriting, environmental sound, rhythmic experimentation and noise into the same continually evolving space.