I’m playing at this ace-looking benefit gig in July, raising money for the second edition of Daniel Spicer’s excellent Brighton Alternative Jazz Festival. Looking forward to collaborating with the guys from Woven Entity! Tom, Anton and Seth are also playing in a trio for the first time.
Anton Hunter has recently posted a video online from our Article XI gig at the Vortex in 2014! Check it out below. It will be great to play with this band again at LUME Festival in June….
The Sloth Racket May tour was a lovely run of gigs. It was great to have the chance to develop our existing music by playing it every night, as well as trying out some new compositions of mine (plus one by Sam Andreae!). Massive thanks to all the promoters who put us on: Andrew Woodhead at Fizzle (Birmingham); Jez Matthews and team from Jazz At The Lescar (Sheffield); Laura, Bill, Dave K and all at Fusebox (Leeds); Chris, Kerstin and all at Fuse Arts (Bradford); and Dee for being our host at LUME for the Vortex album launch gig in London. I’m also extremely grateful to Arts Council England for supporting our touring activities this year: roll on the October tour! I’ve collected together a few tour photos for the blog…
Playing at Fizzle, Birmingham.
On the road to Sheffied with the tour sloth pillow…
Laura Cole, Corey Mwamba and Seth ‘two sets’ Bennett, sharing the bill with us at Fusebox in Leeds.
The Hot Beef Three, sharing the bill with us at Fuse in Bradford.
Backwards Fuse window faces in Bradford.
The album launch gig at the Vortex!
Raclette, who turned up on the first gig of the tour as self-appointed band mascot.
Quick post to report that Madwort Sax Quartet has recorded what will hopefully become a debut album! On 16th April we played a LUME gig at Hundred Years Gallery, and the whole thing was recorded by Alex Bonney. It was a great evening with a lovely crowd (thanks to all who came!), so I look forward to hearing the results. Stay tuned for news of the release plans…
Seth and I are playing a duo set at the Horse Improv Club, IKLECTIK ARTLAB tonight. Swing by if you’re in the area…
I love their flyers.
Sloth Racket is taking to the road in early May to celebrate the release of our album ‘Triptych’ (released 2nd May on our new Luminous label). We’ll be playing around the UK with support from Arts Council England. Can’t wait! See you out there…
It’s been an admin-heavy February, with a lot of preparations for the forthcoming Sloth Racket album release and tour plus some heavy doses of LUME admin too. I’m happy to say though that I’ll be emerging from hibernation in March! A few nice gigs coming up:
On the 15th March Colin Webster and I have been invited to guest with Far Rainbow at Zero Wave Club (The Fiddler’s Elbow, Kentish Town). We’re billed as duelling saxophonists on the FB event…uh oh! This is part of a really nice multi-band bill – check out the flyer below.
On 3rd April I’ll be playing trio with Olie Brice and Corey Mwamba, on the other side of the bill from Dave Kane Quartet at one of our LUME Vortex gigs. Looking forward to this, and the more organised among you can buy tickets for it already.
The last gig I want to mention here is a special one. On 16th April Madwort Sax Quartet are recording our debut album live at LUME! This is happening at Hundred Years Gallery, which is a lovely space. It’s going to be ace to finally record an album with the quartet, which has been playing Tom’s music since 2012. Tickets will be on sale for this soon too.
All in all, a nice couple of months – see you out there!
I’ve had a bunch of video footage from Sloth Racket gigs (thanks Anton!) kicking around for a while, but haven’t had a chance to do anything with it. Now, finally, I’ve posted the first video up online, from our gig at LUME (when we were still at Long White Cloud) in April.
Also hidden in the depths of my computer was this cool poster from our gig at the Kazimier Garden in Liverpool in July. It was a great gig with a lovely crowd, and we were really well looked after by Joel the organiser and DJ. I don’t know who designed the poster, but I love this frog!
I thought it would be nice to post up some Sloth Racket tracks, as this band is my main focus at the moment. The album is being mixed next week (woop!) and the plan is that it will be released in May, but in the mean time here we are at LUME, Long White Cloud earlier this year…
The last few weeks have been pretty packed for me, with some really nice gigs around the place. Ripsaw Catfish returned to Birmingham and played at a lovely and busy Fizzle night (good work Andrew Woodhead!), I played a trio set with Seth Bennett and Andrew Lisle for the first time, and LUME took over the Barbican freestage for an afternoon as part of London Jazz Festival. Sloth Racket appeared at the LUME LJF gig, fresh from the excellent Limefield Studio in Manchester where we recorded our first album – the takes of which I’m listening through now…plus I went to Leeds and Sheffield, depping on bari with Beats & Pieces Big Band. It’s all been a bit mad!
December is looking a bit more chilled out at the moment, which is really nice. Our new tiny LUME label, Luminous, is releasing its first album (‘Interference Patterns’ by Deemer) on 7th December, and we’re launching it on the 6th at the Vortex. We’ll also be running another dice-and-hat gig at Hundred Years Gallery on the 17th. Before that, Ripsaw Catfish continue our accidental ‘city a month’ series by playing at Safehouse in Brighton on the 16th. I’m working on lots of plans for 2016 over the next few weeks too, so watch this space for (hopefully more frequent) updates.
Peter Woodman took some great photos of our LUME afternoon at the Barbican: here’s one of Sloth Racket, complete with Dee standing on the (awesome) LUME merch stall, and Gina Southgate painting us as we play…
