QWINN Starts New Year with “Already Gone”.

Britanny McQuinn joins producers FWLR and Slowpalace for latest collaborative single.

Matt Carter

Singer songwriter Brittany McQuinn has been involved in pop and electronic music for the better part of a decade now. From her work as a solo artist to her many collaborations, she has remained an active writer and performer since prior to releasing her solo debut in 2015 and has weathered many successes and setbacks since, all the while remaining focused on keeping creative and challenging herself musically.

Over the past few years McQuinn performed as one half of the electronic duo Bleum with producer Danial James, while also exploring her own music as QWINN. After releasing a handful of great singles and performing some of the most memorable local live shows in recent memory, Bleum came to an end in 2020.

“The decision to shift gears out of Bleum and into solo work took up a lot of my headspace [in 2020],” said McQuinn. “It took me a while to find my footing creatively and to get to a place where I felt I even wanted to work on something. Music has traditionally been a place where I go to really enjoy myself and to have fun. I just wasn’t in that headspace very much last year, but I missed it and I’m really happy to be able to create again.”

Her first 2021 project as QWINN was released February 8 through the indie electronic label Monstercat. Already Gone is a collaboration with producers FWLR (Nick Fowler) and Slowpalace (Judd Patrick Munoz) and pairs McQuinn’s pop-perfect vocals with an aggressive arrangement that moves between heavy forward momentum and airy peaceful phrases.

“I’ve been working with FWLR since 2017,” said McQuinn. “We met at the Music NB showcase. Nick [Fowler] came up to me at the end and said ‘let’s make some music.’ I was a fan of his so I was really flattered. We started working together then. Before COVID I would go to his studio in Saint John at least once a month so we’ve got a whole bunch of songs that we’ve been working on over the past few years.

Last year, Fowler got in touch with an invitation to revisit some earlier ideas and collaborate on something new.

“He was doing a collaboration with an artist named Slowpalace and they needed some vocals. They hit me up and asked if they could use this vocal track that we had done previously. They weren’t looking for your classic verse-chorus-verse-chorus pop song type thing. That’s basically how I got involved in this project.”

While leaving behind her work with Bleum to focus entirely on her solo projects wasn’t an easy decision for McQuinn, the past year has helped her bridge a few gaps in her outlook and in doing so, has helped ignite an entirely new sense of creative purpose and energy.

“I’m just looking forward to the next season of being QWINN and taking everything that I learned and that I experienced with Bleum and integrating that into who I am as a solo artist,” she said. “Before COVID I felt like my solo act and my work with Bleum were two very separate things and now I’m really feeling that I would be the same person on stage if I did a Bleum show or a solo show. I’ve just fused these expressions of myself as a creative person together. Now I’m looking forward to doing some shows again when restrictions are lifted and releasing some new music this year.”