East Kilbride. I’ve never been and, if I’m honest, I don’t really know exactly where it is or how to get there — but what I do know is that from this place emerges beautiful music that reaches far beyond the boundaries of its origins. Like flowers emerging from cracks in the concrete, reaching for the sun and beyond — defiant, necessary, essential.

The foundation of Gates of Light — AKA Louise Quinn — comes from this place. A singular performer whose collaborations with electro-centric musicians and producers from London, Paris, New York and Glasgow have resulted in some of the most remarkable and captivating music to be created and released on local label Last Night From Glasgow. This is music that exists in the spaces between the organic and the synthetic, between hope and heartbreak.

Performances and releases are few and far between, which makes them all the more precious. So the fact that they perform tonight in support of the Tiny Changes charity feels not just fortunate but somehow fitting — an act of generosity that mirrors the emotional openness of the music itself.

Tonight’s show sees Louise perform with Finlay Macdonald, and the set eases into existence with the bittersweet slow-burner Better Now — a song that doesn’t so much begin as materialise. For me, the highlight of the Gates of Light repertoire comes early, and it hits like a revelation. Quiet Little Miracle is a masterpiece of melancholic hope and yearning — so quiet, so mesmerising, so devastatingly beautiful. I urge you to seek out this song and challenge you not to be moved to your core. Louise’s voice is so pure and natural, untouched by artifice or pretension, that its pairing with an electronic soundtrack creates a perfect union of sweet and sour, blood and code — human vulnerability wrapped in digital precision.

As the set gathers pace, the dynamics shift. Advance introduces a near-techno pulse that feels both urgent and hypnotic, and the duo look perfectly at home in the space they have created. Hypnotic projections of graphic shapes and colour flood the stage with perpetual movement, the visuals pulsing in sync with the music as sound and vision become one immersive experience.

What strikes me most about Gates of Light is the emotional honesty at the heart of everything they do. In an age of overproduction and artifice, there’s something profoundly moving about music this stripped back, this vulnerable, this real. Louise’s voice carries the weight of lived experience — joy and pain in equal measure — while the electronic framework provides not distance but intimacy, creating spaces for emotion to breathe and resonate.

The ability to see Gates of Light in the wild is a rare thing, and tonight proves exactly why they matter. Make sure you take every opportunity to catch them, and in the meantime, seek out their music and support their beautiful work wherever you may find it.

In a world that often feels too loud, too brash, too certain of itself, Gates of Light offer something different — something quieter, deeper, more honest. Something vital.

Words: Nick Tamer

Images: Chris Hogge