November’s EFG London Jazz Festival special offers the following treats…
Adam Fairhall & Dee Byrne
Accordion, toy piano and alto saxophone collision.
adamfairhall.co.uk | deebyrnemusic.com
Tom Ward solo
Flute, saxophone and clarinet odyssey.
madwort.co.uk
Dominic Lash & Cath Roberts
Baritone saxophone and double bass summit.
dominiclash.blogspot.com |cathrobots.co.uk
Advance tickets available from the Luminous website or you can pay £10 cash on the door!
LUME is back at Hundred Years Gallery for three dates this Autumn, starting with a special evening featuring guest host the longtime friend of LUME Colin Webster! Three excellent sets await…
Tom Rivière & Dee Byrne
Double bass and alto saxophone dialogues.
deebyrnemusic.com | tomriviere.com
Charlotte Keeffe solo
Trumpet and flugelhorn solo quest.
charlottekeeffe.com
Colin Webster & Andrew Lisle
Established duo come together to continue the conversation.
webstology.wordpress.com | andrewlisle.com
We’re back this autumn with a fresh crop of new gigs! Three evenings of improvised music at our regular haunt Hundred Years Gallery in Hoxton…
Continuing our three-set format, each month LUME founders Dee Byrne and Cath Roberts will bring a project, and the third ‘guest’ set will feature some more of our favourite artists. There will be a solo set each month; from Cath Roberts in October, Will Glaser in November and Hannah Marshall in December. Multiple ‘first meeting’ duo sets will be played: Cath will play with Ruth Goller for the first time, while Dee will collaborate with Chris Williams (October) and Elliot Galvin (November).
New releases are also a theme. Our Swiss friends Oli Kuster and Cyrill Ferrari will play a set with Dee in November as part of the trio’s UK mini-tour to celebrate the release of their new album ‘Motherboard Pinball’ (Efpi Records). And in December, LUME will host the album release concert for ‘Hold Music’ by cr-ow-tr-io (Cath Roberts, Otto Willberg and Tullis Rennie), which will be out that month on Luminous.
Join us!
WE’RE BACK! We’re excited to announce a new LUME mini-series at Hundred Years Gallery on 15th July and 12th August. Looking back at our gig archive, our last gig there was on 1st December 2017…
Places are limited, so email info@hundredyearsgallery.com to reserve a seat. Doors 7.30pm, music starts at 8pm. Tickets are £5.
Hundred Years Gallery, 13 Pearson Street, London, E2 8JD. Nearest station: Hoxton (Overground).
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15th July 2021
Cath Roberts
Cath Roberts’ work explores free improvisation, composition and the music at their meeting point. Her band Sloth Racket has toured widely and released several albums, and she collaborates with many other artists as an improviser, primarily on baritone saxophone. cathrobots.co.uk
Sam Andreae
Sam Andreae is an artist working in the area of free improvisation. “Andreae delves into an impressive vocabulary of skilfully controlled overtones, rapid keypad flutters and fragile harmonics, glistening like filaments held up to the light.” Daniel Spicer, The Wire (2015) samandreae.com
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Graham Dunning
Graham Dunning’s work explores sound as texture, timbre and something tactile, drawing on bedroom production, tinkering and recycling found objects. He also makes visual work, video and installations relating to these themes. grahamdunning.com
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Deemer + 1
Dee Byrne is a London-based saxophonist, composer and improviser with an interest in pushing the boundaries of jazz. Dee collaborates with artists from the UK and Europe who occupy the area of contemporary jazz, avant-garde and free improvisation. deebyrnemusic.com
Merijn Royaards is a sound artist guided by convoluted movements through music, art and architecture. The interaction between space and sound in cities with a history/present of conflict has been a recurring theme in his multi-media work. merijnroyaards.com
Johnny Hunter is a northern UK-based drummer and composer who comes from a background of both the avant-garde and more mainstream jazz. Johnny leads a number of his own projects from quartet to large ensemble, all of which showcase his fast-developing compositional practice. johnnyhuntermusic.com
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12th August 2021
Cath Roberts
Cath Roberts’ work explores free improvisation, composition and the music at their meeting point. Her band Sloth Racket has toured widely and released several albums, and she collaborates with many other artists as an improviser, primarily on baritone saxophone. cathrobots.co.uk
Benedict Taylor
Benedict Taylor is a British avant-garde violist, violinist and composer. He is a leading figure within the area of contemporary string performance, at the forefront of the British & European classical and new music world. benedicttaylor.bandcamp.com
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Tom Ward
Tom Ward is a musician, composer and computer programmer from Yorkshire, currently based in London. His primary instrument remains the saxophone, but in recent years he has increasingly focused on bass clarinet and flutes. madwort.co.uk
Charlotte Keeffe
Charlotte Keeffe’s unique approach and passion for jazz, experimental and freely improvised music sees her performing regularly as a soloist and as part of a variety of different ensembles, including her own quartet. charlottekeeffe.com
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Dee Byrne
Dee Byrne is a London-based saxophonist, composer and improviser with an interest in pushing the boundaries of jazz. Dee collaborates with artists from the UK and Europe who occupy the area of contemporary jazz, avant-garde and free improvisation. deebyrnemusic.com
Olie Brice
Olie Brice is an improvising double bassist from London. He leads two bands – a quintet that plays his original compositions and a freely improvising trio featuring Tobias Delius and Mark Sanders. He has also worked with musicians including Paul Dunmall, Tony Malaby, Steve Swell, Achim Kaufmann, Alex Ward and Ingrid Laubrock. oliebrice.com
Andrew Lisle
Andrew Lisle is a drummer working in the field of jazz and improvised music. He strives to create music within the avant-garde, pushing the limits of what is possible on the drums (technically and musically) while drawing influence from the jazz tradition. andrewlisle.com
Out today on Luminous is a new Sloth Racket live album! Recorded by Anton Hunter last September when the band were on tour, and mixed by Alex Bonney, it’s the whole set from their date at Arco Barco in Ramsgate. Check it out over on Bandcamp:
Like a million other bands, Sloth Racket had to cancel their tour this year, and this release falls where they would have been out and about playing live. It’s a digital only release, but this doesn’t mean there isn’t any merch: there was always a plan for new t-shirts in 2020 and we’ve decided to still go ahead…
The shirts are available in a bundle with the digital album. Head over to the merch page on Bandcamp to read more about the shirts and check the size guide.
Hope you enjoy the music! We have more Luminous plans up our sleeves, so you never know there just *might* be another release before the year is out.
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…
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…
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.
For the second project in our LUME Lab series, we’re excited to welcome acclaimed saxophonist/woodwind player Julie Kjær. Her performance is on 16th March at IKLECTIK, and you can buy tickets in advance from the Luminous Bandcamp site. In this blog post, Julie gives us an insight into what she’s working on…
Jule Kjær: A study of the double bass (and a bit of the bass clarinet too)
What a great challenge and lovely opportunity to be asked to write some new music for LUME’s new constellation the ‘LUME Lab’. I’ve chosen to write for a quintet comprising 4 double basses and a bass clarinet. (and possible a bit of alto flute + sax)
For a long time now I’ve been wanting to get closer to the double bass, to dig into its lovely woody and stringy deep and to get a better understanding of the instrument. Such a lovely instrument with so many possibilities. Creaking woody sounds, screeching strings, low frequencies and humming sounds of the bow on strings.
During the last 3 weeks I’ve been investigating the world of the double bass. I’ve been listening to lots of music, reading wise words and meeting up with one of my double bass heroes, John Edwards, to watch him do his wizardry on the bass and take as many notes as possible. I’ve also been lucky to be able to borrow a double bass myself and get some hands-on experience to get a physical feeling of how it is to play – checking out the different sounds myself.
The next 3 – 4 weeks I will be processing all this collected material and info and use it as inspiration for the piece I will be writing. The compositing work will be based on the way I’ve been working with composing for the last 5 years, mainly with my trio, Julie Kjær 3, which is combining written material with improvised sections, experimenting with rhythm, sound and extended techniques.
After this I will be meeting up with the group for rehearsals leading up to the concert on the 16th March. The rehearsals are also an important part of the process, where the material is tried out, molded and shaped by the whole group.
The 4 double bass players I’ve asked to play are great players and improvisers. They are all busy on the London experimental and improv scene, but can also be heard in other parts of the music scene playing a.o. folk music and Jazz. I will be playing the bass clarinet part.
Lineup:
Seth Bennett double bass
Olie Brice double bass
Thodoris Ziarkas double bass
Tim Fairhall double bass
Julie kjær bass clarinet/alto flute & composition
