Composite Mashworks at Sonorities Festival, Belfast

Tullis Rennie and I have been working behind the scenes on our duo project Composite Mashworks, which has a few outings coming up this year. First up is Sonorities Festival in Belfast! We’re excited to be a part of their Handmade Music programme, happening on Friday 17th April at Accidental Theatre. The night is packed full of sets by all sorts of brilliant artists so it promises to be a super fun one.

In preparation for this I’m creating a whole new set of the cardboard structures that form part of our improvisation. Initially taking the form of repurposed fragments (see image above) from my 2021 hcmf// piece And then the next thing you know, these are starting to morph into their own thing as the Composite Mashworks project develops. Can’t wait to take them out next month!

 

Duo set with Dee Byrne

Very happy to be part of this bill at the Horse Hospital, London on 7th April for Taupe’s album launch! Dee Byrne and I will be exploring new electronic territories with our ongoing duo project. Tickets and info over on the venue website.

The next night, Dee will perform with the City St George’s Experimental Ensemble at our end-of-year concert! This will be a free event in the Performance Space at the university – I’ll add more details here soon…

Earconnector label launch

I’m very happy to be a part of the launch this Friday 30th January of Alex Bonney’s new label, Earconnector! The label is an outlet for Alex’s collaborations with all sorts of artists from the improvised music and jazz worlds, including me; our duo recording Owl Party Submersible is part of this first batch of releases.


Alex and I will play a duo set at the launch, which is happening at Hundred Years Gallery in Hoxton. Also on the bill are sets from Tom Challenger with Will Glaser, and Alex with Tom Challenger. Join us! Info on the HYG website.

As well as appearing on one of the releases I’m doing the graphic design for the label, working with some great photographs by Alex and original artwork by Tom Challenger, as well as doing the artwork for Owl Party Submersible. There are two cassettes as part of the first batch, so I’ve  designed and printed sleeves for those as part of my work at London Centre for Book Arts. Alongside the covers, I’ve produced inlays, cassette shell labels, the Bandcamp header, a logo variant and the launch gig poster (above). I’m really pleased with how everything looks and have enjoyed the process a lot! More releases coming soon…

2026

Performing with Mariam Rezaei inside Konrad Smolenski’s installation ‘Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More’ at Sacrum Profanum festival, Kraków, 2025. (Photo: Adrianna Kochańska)

Happy new year all!
Having just relocated from London, where I lived for twenty years, to Hastings, it really feels like a new beginning this year. I’m looking forward to getting stuck into projects and collaborations, coming at things from a slightly different (seaside) angle. Among projects active in 2026 will be:

Composite Mashworks
Tullis Rennie and I are putting a lot of energy into developing this duo project, bringing together all sorts of improvised sounds, both acoustic and electronic, with some lo-fi cardboard activated structures following the (neon) thread of And then the next thing you know…

Quartz Sand
Kate Carr and I will be working on the next chapter of our project exploring shifting textures and ‘fossiliferous drift’ with electronics and objects.


Solo practice
My collage/sampler solo project was originally intended to be a pure ‘studio’ project that I worked on behind closed doors, but after three festival performances it’s definitely not that any more! In 2026 I’m planning to knuckle down and make the album, plus continue to develop it live.

Also at Sacrum Profanum 2025 (Photo: Adrianna Kochańska)

Ink-Paper-Sound
I have plans for my micro-press this year, continuing explorations into publishing practices and riso print at London Centre for Book Arts, thinking about how paper experiments interface with improvised music and sound.

Of course, there are many other things potentially going on this year including exciting new projects in the works with collaborators ‘old’ and new. So let’s see what happens….

Arboreal by Sloth Racket pre-orders up! And December gigs…

The new Sloth Racket studio album ARBOREAL is coming out on 1st December and available to pre-order today!


The album was recorded in 2023 at Lightship 95 in London by Giles Barrett then mixed and mastered by Alex Bonney this year. It will be released on the Luminous label as a CD and digital album, along with a limited edition A6 booklet containing the scores from the album with new some riso collage artwork.

For some reason this album took me a while to get finished, so I’m really happy to get it (almost) out the door today. Have a listen to the pre-order track ‘Canopy Riot (At Home In The Leaf Light) and pre-order your physical copies over on the Sloth Racket Bandcamp.

To celebrate the release we’re doing two live dates in December. One south, one north:

  • 5th December in HASTINGS, at the Beacon presented by Two Ship! [buy tickets]
  • 17th December in SHEFFIELD, at The Lescar!

This will round off our very slow, year-long tour celebrating our tenth birthday as a band. Info about the gigs below

Creatures of Tooth live in November

Matthew Grigg has invited Creatures of Tooth to play a set at an afternoon of music he’s organising at Hundred Years Gallery next month. This will be our de facto tape launch event, after our debut recording came out this summer. Join us on 16th November!

Quartz Sand album announced!

I’m super happy to post that the Quartz Sand album Stratigraphy is now available to pre-order from Flaming Pines! Quartz Sand is Kate Carr on electronics and objects, and me on the Lyra-8 synthesiser. Have a listen to some tracks and pre-order your copy over on the label Bandcamp site: