Category Archives: gigging

Word Of Moth action in February

Word Of Moth (complete with new drummer Johnny Hunter) has lots of stuff planned for this year, starting with a flurry of activity in February. We’re appearing at the first LUME Lab gig on 8th February at IKLECTIK, presenting new music that we’ve been working on. Then we’re heading into the studio to record an album, before heading to Wolverhampton on 17th February to play at Jazz At The Arena. After that, we’re off to Bern, Switzerland to play for Jazzwerkstatt at their tenth anniversary festival! It’s all happening….

New Sloth Racket video

Sloth Racket has a new video! Our good friend Ben Owen has made this great short film of us playing at a LUME gig at The Vortex in May this year. The piece we play is called ‘Shapeshifters’ and will appear on our second album, coming out in Summer 2017.

More videos of the band can be found on the Sloth Racket page. Also this month, some new nice words about the band have appeared online; from Dave Sumner on his latest Bird Is The Worm ‘This Is Jazz Today’ dispatch, and from Stewart Smith in his 2016 jazz/improv roundup on The Quietus. Thanks both!

Canterbury adventures with Tullis Rennie and Far Rainbow

Some recordings have emerged of a nice gig I was involved in last month. Extra Normal Records invited me, Tullis Rennie and Far Rainbow to play at a specially-curated edition of the long-running Canterbury night Free Range. Tullis and I played a duo, then Far Rainbow played a set, then we all joined together for a quartet to end the evening. It was a lovely gig: Kyle (Extra Normal) and Sam (Free Range) were great hosts! You can listen to the sets on Soundcloud:

First incarnation of the LUMEkestra

Anton Hunter has posted a video of the LUMEkestra playing his composition ‘LUME Kestrel’. The gig was at IKLECTIK or 14th November, as part of our special LUME triple bill show for the London Jazz Festival. As well as Anton’s piece we played compositions by Paulo Duarte, Tom Ward, Martin Pyne and Dave Kane. It was a lot of fun, and the ensemble will definitely appear again in 2017: its mission is to create a space for the composers around LUME to experiment with writing for large groups.

I was quite pleased with my flyer for this gig too:

lumekestra-poster

Lancaster Jazz Festival Artist in Residence: photo blog

I had a fantastic time as Artist in Residence at Lancaster Jazz Festival this September. What a great festival – and what a brilliant opportunity to offer artists. The headline performance with my ten-piece band was recorded, and should be available to hear soon, but in the mean time here are a few photos from the project.

fullband

Anton’s panorama of the whole group in rehearsal (minus himself!). Click to enlarge.

lancaster-banners

Festival banners with my face on….quite a weird experience!

soundcheck

Soundchecking at the Dukes…
audienceThe audience awaits!

large-ensemble-on-stage

On stage: you can just about see the whole band in this shot…

lancaster-hat-speaks-shredCutting loose after the gig with festival director Matt Robinson at the Lancaster edition of ‘The Hat Speaks’ late night improv session.

The residency was a perfect way to start a new project. Massive thanks to Matt, Dave and the team for making it happen! I’m now keen to do more with the group in 2017, so watch this space….