Anton and I spontaneously released a new Ripsaw Catfish EP a few weeks ago! Office Hours is a series of tracks recorded in Anton’s, well, office. Originally intended just as private documents of a play together, we liked them so much we decided to put them ‘out there’. Add a photo of what was on my own desk, and the release was done. Hope you enjoy!
Tag Archives: ripsaw catfish
Ripsaw Catfish in London
A relatively rare appearance of Ripsaw Catfish in London is coming up next month…catch us on Friday 23rd February at Hundred Years Gallery as part of a Raw Tonk night, with Dirk Serries and Colin Webster!
Carapace now up on Ripsaw Catfish Bandcamp site
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:
September 2022 gigs
After some time off in August, I’ve got a relatively busy Autumn coming up – starting with a cluster of gigs this month.
Saturday 3rd September: solo electronics set at Mercury Over Maps
I’ve been invited by Bill Thompson to play at his series Mercury Over Maps at Hundred Years Gallery. I haven’t played a solo set for a few months, so it will be nice to get back into that headspace – especially with electronics which are very new to me. I’m hoping to bring the whole set of mini synths, sampler and possibly a new addition, and I’m joining some great artists on the bill too – it should be a very nice evening.
Thursday 8th September: Spinningwork album launch at Listen! Cambridge
The quartet of Johnny Hunter, Olie Brice, Tom Ward and me has an album coming out on the Newcastle label New Jazz And Improvised Music Recordings on Friday 9th, so we’re celebrating the release with an album launch in Cambridge the night before! Graham and Carol at Listen! are big supporters of all of us, so it’s the perfect place to do it. You can buy tickets for the gig over on their website.
Friday 9th September: duo with Sam Andreae at Hundred Years Gallery
To end the week I’m back in London for a duo set with Sam – our first in a few months! This is part of a double bill concert organised by Phil Durrant, with the other set by Phil and John Bissett. Sam and I will be bringing – and potentially expanding – our tabletop objects/electronics setup from the ‘Miaow Argument’ tape.
Saturday 10th/Sunday 11th September: Lancaster Jazz Festival
Over the weekend I’m up in Lancaster, playing duo sets at 2pm on both days! Saturday is with Dee Byrne, adding electronics to our two saxophone duo project, and then on Sunday Anton Hunter and I will play a Ripsaw Catfish set. Both gigs at at The Storey, and you can find more info on the festival website.
Tuesday 13th September: Olie Brice Octet album launch at Cafe Oto
Last year I was very happy to be invited to play on Olie’s large ensemble session, and this Cafe Oto date is the launch of that recording, part of a double album ‘Fire Hills’. You can grab tickets for the gig over on the Cafe Oto website. The band is packed full of really great players!
Saturday 24th September: duo with Blanca Regina at BRÅK
My last gig of the month is back in my local haunt waterintobeer for another BRÅK, playing with Blanca Regina for the first time. Also on the bill are guests Caroline Kraabel (playing with Tom Ward) and Sarah Gail Brand (playing with Colin Webster).
Looking forward to getting stuck into this playing after some time away from the instrument(s). See you out there…
CARAPACE available to pre-order on Raw Tonk!
It’s out there: you can now listen to and pre-order Carapace from Raw Tonk. Check it out!
Ripsaw Catfish new album and live dates
It’s been five years (!) since the release of the second Ripsaw Catfish album Namazu, so Anton and I are pretty excited that our third one will be coming out later this month! Recorded last September in Manchester, then mixed and mastered by Alex Bonney, Carapace sees us add my electronics to the mix and take the duo in a new direction. We’re very happy that it will be released on Raw Tonk again too. You can pre-order the album from Friday 10th June and it’s out on Friday 24th June. My flyer for this features Colin Webster’s awesome linocut album artwork, which will appear on the sleeves in hand-printed form.
To coincide with the release we’re going out on a mini-tour, with three live dates in the UK:
18th June – BRÅK @ waterintobeer, Brockley, London | 19:00, £5 or more
We’re launching the album in the beer shop! It seemed fitting considering that the label boss and 50% of the band are involved in running the gig. Info about BRÅK is on our website, and you can find out how to get to the shop on the wib site.
26th June – Soundhunt @ Thrive, Cambridge | 19:00, £5
Another new series here run by Dominic Lash and N.O Moore, who we’ll be sharing the bill with. The gig is happening at Thrive, a great vegan cafe within walking distance of the station. More venue info on the Thrive site.
19th July – Chance Meeting @ NIAMOS, Hulme, Manchester | 19:30, £9/£6 unwaged
In our other home city we’ll be playing at this brand new night, sharing the bill with THRAA. All the info you need can be found on the Chance Meeting site, where you can also follow a link to buy tickets for the gig.
Looking forward to getting out there with this band again!
Ripsaw Catfish live dates and recording plans
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…
Guest presenting The Efpi Show – 21st June 2021
I’m very happy to be a guest presenter on The Efpi Show, a fortnightly radio show from the label Efpi Records – home of the first album of my own compositions Quadraceratops back in 2014. The show goes out today, Monday 21st June at 5pm on Camp Radio, and will be up on Mixcloud afterwards. [Edit: the Mixcloud player is below! And the page is here.]
Below is a complete tracklist from my episode, and I’ve included links to places where you can buy the music either direct from the artists or from their labels. Sometimes I couldn’t find the track/album in question, but I did find a place where the artist was selling other/more recent work, so I included those links. Some of the tracks are old pop songs that are widely available in the usual places…
Also on the show is an unreleased Ripsaw Catfish set recorded over JackTrip earlier this year, and an interview with Dee Byrne about her new Deemer + 1 album on Luminous.
Hope you enjoy the show! I had a lot of fun putting it together.
The Efpi Show with Cath Roberts, 21st June 2021
Camp Lo – Luchini AKA This Is It (from Uptown Saturday Night, 1997)
Andrew Weathers Ensemble – A Mountain Of Snakes, The High Plains, A Knee In The Earth (from The Thousand Birds In The Earth, The Thousand Birds In The Sky, 2020)
Rogue Three – I Really Kronenberged Up The Whole Place (from No Meat On Bumblebees, 2018)
Elliott Smith – Condor Avenue (from Roman Candle, 1994)
Okkyung Lee – Two Perfectly Shaped Stones (from Ghil, 2013)
MF Doom (prod. Flying Lotus) – Lunch Break
Deemer + 1 – Clear Seeing (from Aftermath, 2021)
[Interview: Dee Byrne]
Deemer + 1 – Kinetic Frenetic (from Aftermath, 2021)
Veruca Salt – Spiderman 79 (from American Thighs, 1994)
Silence Blossoms – King Of Everything (from Silence Blossoms, 2014)
Nut Club – Cheekbones (from December 2013, 2014)
[Ripsaw Catfish – Unreleased JackTrip set, February 2021]
Left-Handed Tapedeck Mix
(originally side A of a cassette mix for Sophie Cooper’s mixtape exchange in the first 2020 lockdown)
Ryoko Ono – pAq (from Alternate Flash Heads, 2015)
Georgia Anne Muldrow – Never A Day In Vain (from Early, 2009)
Laura Cole – Outgoing Vessels (from Enough, 2018)
Stephanie Richards – New Moon (from Fullmoon, 2018)
The Breeders – I Just Wanna Get Along (from Last Splash, 1993)
The B-52s – Dry County (from Cosmic Thing, 1989)
Max Tundra – Lights (from Mastered By Guy At The Exchange, 2002)
Scarub – Wishful Thinking (from Savvy Traveller, 1999)
Beck Hunters – Yes And No (from Has It Been Found?, 2019)
Another video! Ripsaw Catfish at Summit
Rob Thorpe of Summit, who put us on in Salford a few weeks ago, filmed and recorded this piece from our set. A nice record of the Ripsaw Catfish tour! More to come soon.
Ripsaw Catfish tour!
New tour, new flyer! I’m pretty pleased with this one, which is a digital mash-up of Angela Guyton‘s awesome Catfish logo design and some hand-written/drawn text by me.
Anyway, it’s been a while since Anton Hunter and I – aka Ripsaw Catfish – have been on tour, but it’s happening this June. We’re playing four dates in the North of England and London. If you’re in the vicinity of any of the gigs, come out and hear us. Our second album Namazu, which apparently came out two years ago (!) on Raw Tonk Records, will be on the merch table too. Onward, Catfish!