LUME has three new gigs booked at Hundred Years Gallery this autumn. I’ll be playing a solo set, a duo with Ruth Goller, and a trio set (cr-ow-tr-io) with Otto Willberg and Tullis Rennie. The trio will be launching our new album ‘Hold Music’, out on Luminous in December. Head to the LUME website for all the info about these gigs.
On Saturday 9th October, Sloth Racket will play its first gig since September 2019 – and it’s something a bit different. A few months ago Marsden Jazz Festival invited us to play at their 2021 edition as part of the New Stream programme, but it soon became apparent that Anton would be away on parental leave. As the band hadn’t played live for so long, Anton suggested we do it anyway – with a guest. Interesting! The festival were up for this plan, but everyone agreed that we shouldn’t just book a ‘dep’ guitarist. It was an opportunity to do something new and take the group into another sound-world…
With this in mind, we’ll be playing a special one-off set with our friend the amazing improviser Hannah Marshall on cello! This will be the first time we’ve played with a different line-up, and we’ll also be playing all-new music, bringing in ideas that have come out of our online lockdown R&D project ‘A Room Inside The Internet’ from earlier this year. I can’t wait to get most of the band together for this first meeting of new/old collaborators, and see where the music takes us.
You can catch our set at 5pm in St Batholomew’s Church, Marsden. There’s music all afternoon: we’re on after Vula Viel and John Pope Quintet, so it’s probably worth turning up for the whole event. All the info is on the Marsden Jazz Festival website and tickets are on sale now.
We’re getting close to the day when Spinningwork, a quartet that so far has only played online, will finally gather in the same room! Our set at Newcastle Festival Of Jazz And Improvised Music 2021 will also be the recording of our forthcoming album on the New Jazz And Improvised Music Recordings label attached to the festival. Tickets for our set are on sale now.
Film poster for Aelita: Queen of Mars
Ripsaw Catfish has a couple of live dates coming up this month, our first since pre-pandemic times. We’re at the Hexagon Theatre at the mac, Birmingham on 23rd September, sharing the bill with Richard Foote’s Double Trombone Quintet for TDE Promotions. After that we head to Manchester to play for NQ Jazz on 26th September, soundtracking the 1924 soviet sci-fi film Aelita: Queen of Mars for their film night.
Between those two gigs we’re going into the studio to record our third album for Raw Tonk Records. The label will be celebrating its tenth anniversary in 2022, and this release will be part of a batch of Raw Tonk Ten Years albums. During lockdown Anton and I have been experimenting with bringing my tabletop synths and objects into the Catfish setup, and I’m looking forward to continuing these explorations in the same room as each other…
Coming up on Friday 6th August, a duo set with Dee at s10c. This is the gig series attached to the Lewisham studio that I share with Sam Andreae, Mio Ebisu, Tom Ward and Hannah Marshall. Hannah, Sam and Mio put on a lovely gig in the space in 2019, so it’s great to see them starting up again. And the first gig for Dee and I for a long time too! The programme is still developing, so keep an eye on the website so see which artists will be involved.
It’s been a while! LUME is back, putting on gigs again in London. Our first outing is a pair of dates at Hundred Years Gallery, where we haven’t hosted a gig since December 2017. Three sets of improvised music in July and August, featuring a whole bunch of our favourite people…
Places are limited, so email the venue to reserve your place (pay on the door when you arrive).
More about the artists can be found on the LUME website, where you’ll also find a refreshed archive of all our gigs and projects since 2013. It was amazing to go through it all while working on the site….quite a list of stuff.
A nice gig for the Autumn has just been announced. I’m part of Spinningwork, a collaborative quartet that has been playing monthly on JackTrip during the pandemic. Tom Ward, Olie Brice, Johnny Hunter and I initially had a one-off online jam organised by Johnny, but it soon became something that met regularly. All the members are bringing compositions, and we’re now working towards an album, out in 2022 on New Jazz and Improvised Music Recordings.
The album will be recorded live at The Black Swan Venue Space, Newcastle Arts Centre as part of Newcastle Festival of Jazz and Improvised Music 2021. How exciting to be going up to Newcastle for a gig again – it will be the first time in a long while. Tickets are on sale for the gig: it would be great if you could join us for this special live recording.
Quick post about a livestream gig I’m doing next Monday, 7th June. A trio set with Tom Ward and Tullis Rennie for City, University of London! We’ll be playing some City students’ compositions along with our own improvised trio music. Head to the City website for details of how to tune in, as well as info on the rest of their Summer Sounds concert season.
The next installment of my gig recordings Bandcamp site is up: a duo with Andrew Cheetham from last year at BRÅK. I think it was the first time we’d played together! Dirk Serries recorded, mixed and mastered this one.
Corey Mwamba has just released a recording I found in my archives, of his piece New Dark Art played by a special sax quartet forwed for the occasion. We did two performances of the piece in May 2015, one in London and one in Derby. This recording is of the London date, a LUME gig at Long White Cloud on 14th May.
The quartet was all Eb saxophones. I was on baritone along with Colin Webster; Tom Ward and Chris Williams were on altos. A really nice project!
If you head over to Corey’s Bandcamp site you can download the release, and subscribe to the site for access to tons more music.