Summer duo gigs with Dee Byrne – and TAPE!

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!

 

Colin Webster Large Ensemble – First Meeting

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….

Expanding Fixed Freedoms performance at City

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.

Special edition covers for Sloth Racket albums

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.

TREAD INTO MULCH

Another gig for the duo of Graham Dunning and me is coming up this month, at the squelchily-named TREAD INTO MULCH series, run by Paul Margree. The gig is happening at Hundred Years Gallery on Friday 26th May; we’re sharing the bill with two solo sets from Paul (as Ivy Nostrum) and John Macedo. I’m really enjoying the way the duo is developing, and looking forward to another outing!

City University Experimental Ensemble

The early part of this year so far has brought a few new things for me, and one of them is an exciting new role as leader of City University Experimental Ensemble (CUEE). I’m running the student group for this Spring term, exploring group improvisation alongside Sharon Gal’s Études. This deck of cards is a ‘set of scores and propositions’ for performance, and is full of provocations, instructions, statements and suggestions (not to mention beautiful colours) that are forming a basis for us to create some new music together.

The first time I worked with CUEE was as a guest artist in 2016, shortly after it was set up by my long-time collaborator Tullis Rennie. The ensemble performed my pieces Off-World and March Of The Egos (I can’t remember who that title refers to…) at IKLECTIK, and the recording was released on vinyl by multi.modal. CUEE have returned to the venue many times since then, and this year’s end of term concert is happening there, at IKLECTIK, on Wednesday 12th April. It should be a great evening of brand new improvised music, alongside the City University Field Recording Ensemble – and you can now reserve a free place at the concert.

Creatures of Tooth debut gig / electronics duo at BRÅK

I haven’t been online very much recently as project work is taking up most of my time, but I’m jumping back on today as I have two nice gigs coming up this weekend!

Firstly on Friday 17th February at Lewisham Arthouse it’s the first outing of Creatures of Tooth. This is a brand new duo project with Tom Ward on clarinets and me on live electronics! Doors are 7.30pm, it’s £5 on the door and byob, and we’re sharing the bill with LOFE…

Then the next night, Saturday 18th February, BRÅK is back at waterintobeer with a great lineup. I’m on electronics again, this time in a duo with Bill Thompson – the second gig of this collaboration. My plan is to plan lyra-8 synth only, and Bill will bring his new laptop setup.

Looking forward to both of these!