Sloth Racket are heading out for a geographically-challenging weekend next month, playing two gigs before we go into the studio. Buy tickets now to catch us in Glasgow or Brighton – and nowhere in between!
***Glasgow tickets and info***
***Brighton tickets and info***
As part of going deeper into printmaking this year, I’ve been working on a DIY publishing project over the summer. The results are available today, and I’m super happy with how it came out!
Setlist is an anthology of words by artists from the worlds of improvised and experimental music. I invited five people to write a four-word provocation/title/agitation/starting point for an improvising group or solo performer, and wrote one myself too. Together they form a handy pocket-sized guide containing what could be the theme for your next improv set, the setlist for your band’s next gig, the lyrics for your new album, the score for your orchestra’s next concert, the text of your next work email…the possibilities are endless. I had a lot of fun thinking about layout and design, and making some incidental artwork for between the micro-texts.
There are contributions from:
David Birchall
Dee Byrne
Kate Carr
Graham Dunning
Anton Hunter
plus one by me.
It’s a 20-page A7 mini-zine, riso-printed in orange ink on recycled paper and card by Footprint Workers Co-op in Leeds. I love Footprint and have worked with them for quite a few years on Sloth Racket posters, flyers, the Organising Space album cover and the companion zine to Dismantle Yourself.
In order to get Setlist out there into the world I’ve started a webshop on Big Cartel. My plan is to populate it with more zines and other print experiments, but in the mean time you can head over there to order your copy of the zine!
Graham Dunning has made another nice video of our duo playing live, this time last month at TACO! in Thamesmead. It was an absolute joy to play through their huge soundsystem! Our set was at the inaugural experimental music night there, organised by sound artist Kate Carr.
We’ve just published the newest Ripsaw Catfish album, Carapace, on the band’s own BC site. The album came out last year on Raw Tonk, and you can now support the band by grabbing your copy from us direct! See embed below…
I’m also pretty pleased with the new site header I bashed out while uploading the album last night, featuring a very distorted and blown-up part of Colin’s album artwork for Carapace:
This summer Dee and I are playing a cluster of gigs as a duo, in London, Bristol and Antwerp! We’re working on acoustic saxophone improvisations as well as a new electronic version of the duo with me on Lyra-8 synthesiser and Dee processing her sax with effects pedals, which we’ll do at BRÅK for the first time and then record.
24th June – BRÅK at waterintobeer, Brockley, London
26th June – Cafe Kino, Bristol with Clarkson/Grigg/Hill and Carnivorous Plants
28th June – Flim Flam at Ryan’s Bar, Stoke Newington, London
25th August – Summer Bummer Festival in Antwerp, Belgium
To mark the occasion, our 2020 duo album Disembark! is now available as a cassette….you can grab one from Luminous, or from the merch table at one of the gigs. I’m very happy with how these prints came out – most of them are the product of a very hot day in the studio, when my printing got slightly freeform and chaotic, and it’s led to some rad results. Every individual case is different and will be shipped randomly!
Out now on Raw Tonk is First Meeting, the debut release from Colin Webster’s new large ensemble. Featuring an array of great improvisers – it’s a pleasure to be a part of it. The recording is from our gig last year at Cafe Oto. Have a listen….
Over the past few months I’ve enjoyed being a part of Expanding Fixed Freedoms, a new project led by Tullis Rennie. Tullis’ solo album Fixed Freedoms was released last year on Matthew Herbert’s label Accidental Jnr Records, part of their Room 2 series focusing on electronic music outside the club mainstream. Now Tullis has assembled a group of additional musicians to add an acoustic element to the original material, and we’ve been working collectively to reimagine the music and sound with a view to creating something new. With Tullis on live electronics, the new group adds Preetha Narayanan on violin, Tara Franks on cello, Dee Byrne on alto saxophone and me on baritone saxophone.
It’s been a really interesting process, culminating this weekend with a performance and recording session. You can hear the music live this Friday 2nd June in the Performance Space at City, University of London: tickets are free and you can reserve your place on the City concerts website, where you’ll also find more information and the event details.
I’ve started renting a studio space this year to focus on my printmaking work, which I’m happy to say has been leading to a lot of inky experiments. Up on the Sloth Racket Bandcamp site now are some fresh 2023 covers for a couple of our albums. Both are editions of 10.
May I introduce the Shapeshifters 2023 rhubarb and custard edition…
…and the blue eyed monster edition of A Glorious Monster!
More print experiments to follow.
A fresh crop of improv gigs at the beer shop coming at you! Looking forward to duo sets with Dee Byrne, Isidora Edwards and Phil Durrant. Info on the BRÅK website.
Cr-ow-tr-io rides again! Otto, Tullis and I are playing at the inaugural Two Ship Festival in Hastings on Saturday 20th May. More info and tickets from the Two Ship Eventbrite page, and the lineup is below…
