On Saturday 21st December, LUME has been invited to take over Dexter Bentley’s Hello Goodbye Show on Resonance FM! To round off 2019 we’re looking forward to filling an entire radio show with LUME stuff. We’ll be playing some tasty tracks and talking about LUME projects past and present, plus there will be two live sets: one from Ti/om (Tom Ward and Tim Fairhall) and a duo set from Dee and Cath.
Tune in from 12 noon until 1.30pm to hear what we’ve got up our sleeves…
At this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival, LUME will showcase two new projects that reflect the adventurous spirit of our music-making. Come down to the Barbican foyer (free entry!) on the afternoon of Saturday 23rd November to hear sets from:
5pm: Rachel Musson / Cath Roberts / Andrew Lisle
All active as collaborator, bandleaders and composers in their own right, Musson, Lisle and Roberts have joined forces in this new trio. Rachel Musson is a distinctive voice on the European scene, regularly collaborating with artists including Julie Kjær, Hannah Marshall, Olie Brice, Pat Thomas, Louis Moholo-Moholo and many more. Andrew Lisle is in demand as an improvising drummer in London and further afield, with ongoing projects including Kodian Trio, Alex Ward’s Item ensembles and his own trio with Charlotte Keeffe and Otto Willberg. LUME’s own Cath Roberts primarily plays baritone saxophone and can be found leading her ensembles Sloth Racket and Favourite Animals, in established duos with Anton Hunter and Benedict Taylor, and as bandmate in groups including Article XI, Vole and Madwort Saxophone Quartet.
Rachel Musson – tenor saxophone
Cath Roberts – alto saxophone
Andrew Lisle – drums
6pm: Deemer + 1
The brain-child of sound artist Merijn Royaards and saxophonist/composer/LUME co-conspirator Dee Byrne, Deemer started life in 2006 as a weekly improvisation/electronics session in a warehouse in Hackney Wick. Over the years the project has evolved into a continuing conversation that is always inquisitive, searching and fresh. The duo released their debut album ‘Interference Patterns’ on Luminous Label in 2015. Their second release ‘Live At The Vortex’ was released on cassette in 2016. They are currently working on their next release on Luminous, which will feature guest artists involved in their new Deemer + 1 project. For this special London Jazz Festival performance Deemer invites Manchester-based drummer, composer and bandleader Johnny Hunter as special guest for a heavy dose of sonic cookery.
Dee Byrne – alto saxophone
Merijn Royaards – electronics
Johnny Hunter – drums
As 2018 kicks off, we’ve been looking back at our 2017 releases on the Luminous label. We put out four albums last year: Sloth Racket’s second album ‘Shapeshifters’, the third volume of ‘Live At LUME’, Cath Roberts and Tullis Rennie’s duo album ‘Blurts/Growls’ and Cath’s large ensemble album with Favourite Animals! This meant that our catalogue almost doubled in size, and happily allowed us to make this handy square of Luminous covers for your perusal below.
To keep up to date on future Luminous releases as well as plans for LUME gigs, sign up to our newsletter over on the right…
We have a couple of gigs coming up before 2017 is out. Read on for the lowdown on LUME plans for the next couple of months!
19th November: LUME/Jazzwerkstatt Bern @ Rich Mix for EFG London Jazz Festival
In February this year we were lucky enough to be invited to play at the tenth edition of the Jazzwerkstatt festival in Bern, Switzerland. Dee, Cath, Seth Bennett and Johnny Hunter – who had been working together around that time on the LUME quartet project Word Of Moth – travelled to Bern to collaborate with Swiss musicians, play a live set and take in the festival for the week. It was a fantastic trip, and when we got back we knew we had to organise a return leg somehow. Thanks to Serious, producers of EFG London Jazz Festival, we’re making it happen this month!
On Sunday 19th November, a UK/Swiss sextet made up of LUME and Jazzwerkstatt-affiliated musicians will play the support set for The Thing at Rich Mix. This will be a blast – we’re looking forward to revisiting the music and catching up with our Swiss friends. Tickets can be bought from the festival website, and the lineup is:
Dee Byrne – alto saxophone
Simon Petermann – trombone/electronics
Cath Roberts – baritone saxophone
Oli Kuster – keyboards
Seth Bennett – bass
Johnny Hunter – drums
1st December: Sloth Racket/The Hat Speaks @ Hundred Years Gallery
On the first Friday of December we’re having an end-of-year shindig at one of our favourite venues, Hundred Years Gallery in Hoxton. Sloth Racket will play as part of a mini-tour to support their live album on the Tombed Visions label, and then the rest of the evening will be dedicated to a winter edition of our dice-and-hat improv session The Hat Speaks. We’ve lined up an exciting array of people to make up the nebulous ensemble of names in the hat:
Kim Macari – trumpet
Charlotte Keeffe – trumpet
Alex Bonney – cornet
Tullis Rennie – trombone
Alex Ward – clarinet
Tom Ward – saxophone, bass clarinet
Dee Byrne – alto saxophone
Cath Roberts – baritone saxophone
Sam Andreae – alto saxophone
John Macedo – electronics
Francesca Ter-Berg – cello/electronics
Seth Bennett – double bass
Huw V Williams – double bass
Simon Roth – drums
Liz Exell – drums
Doors will be 7.30pm, with the music starting at 8pm. Entry will be one Bank of England note.
LUME is on hiatus this Autumn while Cath and Dee are working hard on other projects. Two of these are particularly relevant this month, so here’s the lowdown…
Entropi Moment Frozen album launch
The eagerly-anticipated second album from Entropi, Moment Frozen, is released this month on Whirlwind Recordings. To celebrate the release, Dee is taking the band on a UK tour including a special album release show at Kings Place on Friday 29th September. It promises to be a lovely evening and a great chance to hear the band playing their new album on home turf. Tickets are moving fast, so we advise getting yours as soon as you can: they’re available from the Kings Place website.
LUME regulars will know that Entropi explores a narrative of life-pondering, space-gazing and risk-taking through Dee’s striking compositions. Juggling order and chaos, composed material and improvisation, the group takes listeners on a journey with compelling group interplay, strong themes, dark grooves and interweaving melodic textures. Joining Dee in the band are four fantastic musicians, all of whom are in demand on the UK scene and beyond. It makes for a heavyweight lineup:
Dee Byrne alto saxophone
Andre Canniere trumpet
Rebecca Nash keyboard
Matt Fisher drums
Olie Brice bass
This gig will be something of a LUME social, so we’d love it if you can join us. Make sure you’re part of it by buying your tickets now!
Favourite Animals large ensemble album crowdfunder
While Dee is releasing and touring a new album this month, Cath is in the midst of the production of her own. Favourite Animals, the ten piece group originally formed for Cath’s residency at Lancaster Jazz Festival last year, went into the studio this August with Alex Bonney. They spent three days working at City, Uinversity of London – thanks to trombonist Tullis Rennie who works as a lecturer there – and recorded new versions of all the music from the Lancaster commission.
Favourite Animals is an extended version of Cath’s regular band Sloth Racket. The ten piece version adds woodwind and brass, and just generally more improvisers:
Graham South – trumpet
Tullis Rennie – trombone
Julie Kjær – flute/bass clarinet
Tom Ward – flute/bass clarinet
Dee Byrne – alto saxophone
Sam Andreae – tenor saxophone
Cath Roberts – baritone saxophone
Anton Hunter – guitar
Seth Bennett – bass
Johnny Hunter – drums
With a set of great takes waiting patiently on a hard drive, the next stage is raising the money to get the album out there. Cath is running a crowdfunding campaign this month to cover the musicians and engineers’ fees, the mixing and mastering, and the production of physical CD albums. The plan is to release the album on Luminous this December, to coincide with Favourite Animals’ joint tour with Article XI. With your help, we can finish the Luminous year with our most ambitious release to date! Check out the campaign page for more info about the project, photos from the session, and lots of backer perks to get your hands on…
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading, and keep any eye on the LUME social media channels through the month for more about these projects and some extremely exciting giveaways…
Thanks to all who came out to spend their weekend with us at LUME Festival 2017 in June. We had a blast! Also massive thanks to Eduard for hosting us at IKLECTIK, to all the musicians who played, and to everyone who helped us out on the day (special mention to our awesome merch assistant Liz).
LUME is taking a break now, but watch this space for news of further activities in the coming months…
Dee Byrne leads the LUMEkestra at LUME Festival 2017 (photo by Bill Clifford)
A second incarnation of the LUMEkestra will emerge to play the closing set of LUME Festival 2017. This behemoth of a band will debut new compositions by Sam Andreae, Adam Fairhall, Dee Byrne and more to be announced. Check out the line-up below!
Advance tickets for the festival are on sale from our Bandcamp site: grab yours now…
Reeds
Sam Andreae – alto saxophone
Dee Byrne – alto saxophone
Rachel Musson – tenor saxophone
Cath Roberts – baritone saxophone
Tom Ward – bass clarinet
Colin Webster – saxophone
Brass
Tullis Rennie – trombone
Keys
Adam Fairhall
Rebecca Nash
Guitar
Paulo Dias Duarte
Anton Hunter
Ed Riches
Vibes/percussion/other small instruments
Martin Pyne
Corey Mwamba
Bass
Seth Bennett
Olie Brice
Tim Fairhall
Drums/percussion
Matt Fisher
Johnny Hunter
Andrew Lisle
(Photo from the first LUMEkestra gig at London Jazz Festival 2016)
A handy schedule to help you plan your weekend at LUME Festival 2017….
Advance tickets on sale from the Luminous Bandcamp site.
The second LUME Festival is taking place at IKLECTIK on the weekend of 24th/25th June. This year’s event will be a two-dayer, with a host of LUME’s favourite artists on the bill. Join us for two days of spontaneous musical explorations, collaborations old and new, live painting from Gina Southgate and all round good times!
Saturday: The Hat Speaks // Alex Bonney solo // Ma/ti/om // Archipelago // Sloth Racket // Corey Mwamba (LUME Lab Festival Special) // Gina Southgate
Sunday: The Hat Speaks // Tullis Rennie solo // Birchall/Cheetham/Webster/Willberg // Entropi // Metamorphic // LUMEkestra //Gina Southgate
Food // drinks // merch
2pm – midnight (live sets 3pm – 10.30pm)
Buy your tickets now from the Luminous Bandcamp site.
Praise for last year’s inaugural festival:
‘A glimpse of the kind of self-generated, mutually supportive communities we’re going to need if we’re to survive the years ahead.’ – Daniel Spicer, The Wire
‘Like all the best family get togethers LUME Festival should be an annual event. This debut was outstanding.’ – Thomas Rees, Jazzwise
Hello! My name’s Anton (that’s my grinning face in front of a wall up there). For the past few years I’ve been trying to focus my own composing on larger groups, which started with my 11-piece band Article XI, the goal being to get some of the feel and spontaneity of small groups to work on a bigger scale. Having the power and energy of a larger group but still allowing the individual musicians’ voice and personality to come through. That’s the plan anyway. Here’s a video of an Article XI piece if you’d like something to listen to while you read…
For my LUME Lab project, I’m debuting new music for a new ensemble, and I’ve purposefully chosen some people I’ve not worked with much before, but have been wanting to for a while. Namely:
Kim Macari Stone-Lonergan – trumpet
Dee Byrne – alto sax
Rachel Musson – tenor sax
Tullis Rennie – trombone
Cath Roberts – baritone sax
Andrew Lisle – drums
Tim Fairhall – double bass
and me – guitar
Over the past few months I’ve been meeting up with the musicians to improvise together in duos and trios. Initially we played completely freely to get a feel for how everyone fits together, and I recorded the sessions. I then went back and listened to it all and picked a few moments out, a melody or two, or some chords, or a riff. See exhibit A:
Then we all met up again, in different duos and trios and played the ideas I had transcribed, with a lot more improvising around them. Since then I’ve been hard at work, listening to these sessions and drawing elements in, expanding on some of the written passages, discounting others that didn’t work. This time the recorded material hasn’t been as much a source for me to transcribe, but a way to instantly get into the soundworld of a composition, and I’ve done a lot of improvising melodies whilst listening, or just after listening and so on.
I’m really looking forward to the gig: there’s going to be a whole load of space for these incredible improvisers to express themselves, and if you’ve seen or heard any of them before you’ll know not to miss the chance to see them again. We’re also going to play some hits from my back-catalogue. Or, rather, three or four tunes that I’ve written for different ensembles, so if the Article XI video above has finished playing, try clicking go on this one, with the LUMEkestra last year. We’ll be doing our own octet version of it.
Thanks for reading! Please buy a ticket or two in advance; your support is really vital for nights like LUME to survive, and Cath and Dee work incredibly hard to create a supportive space for new music like this. See you on the 24th!
P.S. Here’s a photo of me not in front of a wall, for balance.
