Category Archives: grooves

Two projects for September

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…

LUME FESTIVAL 2017 is almost upon us…

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

LUME Lab project blog #1: Word Of Moth

Dee Byrne (alto sax), Cath Roberts (baritone sax), Seth Bennett (bass), Johnny Hunter (drums)

Word Of Moth is a collaborative quartet set up by LUME founders Dee and Cath: we needed something musical to offset all the admin work we do together! The band has just got a new drummer, Johnny Hunter, and so we’ve used our LUME Lab slot to develop the new lineup, taking existing material in new directions as well as working on some brand new music together. The band is recording its debut album this month, and heading to Switzerland to play at the Jazzwerkstatt collective’s tenth anniversary festival, so this LUME Lab date is the start of some exciting moth times. A few words about what we’ve been doing before you join us on 8th February…

Dee writes:

We had a good rehearsal yesterday [25th January], working on some new material, which we’ll perform at IKLECTIK on 8th February and will also be recording on 16th February. The line-up in Word of Moth (drums, double bass, baritone sax and alto sax) is a new challenge for me to compose for; the absence of a chordal instrument encourages me to take a new approach and look more creatively at the specific roles of each instrument. The horns can comp a bass or drum solo as well as play melodies and improvise, which is a fun extra element.

The new compositions I brought to the rehearsal were not polished arrangements, but instead took the form of a few distinct sections, which we then workshopped and arranged as a group. It’s a fun and collaborative way to work and led to some cool results! Some of the things we looked at were transitions between different sections such as introducing a riff/theme during a solo or half the group moving to the next section resulting in two sections overlapping (that sounded great!)

Cath writes:

For Word Of Moth I’ve found myself taking a different approach to composing than I usually might. My current concerns with my regular band Sloth Racket are about using a combination of graphics and conventional notation to create structures for us to improvise our way through. This involves lots of cutting, sticking and photocopying to create scores as if the computer had never been invented.

For some reason though, for WoM I’ve found myself writing pieces that are more like short rock/pop songs! For the LUME Lab rehearsals I’ve been bringing in simple riffs or hooks, sometimes with an attached melody, but not much in the way of fully developed structures. This has led to some pretty stripped-down sounding music, with a lot of space for us to improvise and develop the tunes together. Plus I get to rock out playing some heavy riffs on bari, or rock out while listening to Seth playing them on bass, which is extremely satisfying.

It will be good to pull the pieces together and try them out at our LUME Lab gig – by which time we should be a step closer to being ready to go into the studio too….

Word Of Moth’s LUME Lab gig is 8th February at IKLECTIK, near Waterloo. Doors at 8pm, music 8.30pm. Tickets are on sale now from the Luminous Bandcamp site, and we’d love to see you there.

LUMEkestra successfully unleashed!

Quick post to share Dan Paton’s photo of the LUMEkestra in action last night at IKLECTIK. It was a fantastic night: the venue was packed out, good times were had and new music was made. There will be more…..see you next time!

26th June @ IKLECTIK: LUME Festival

We’re extremely happy to be able to type this: LUME Festival is going ahead! With the support of our awesome 131 Kickstarter backers, Arts Council England and the Austrian Cultural Forum, we’ll be hosting an all-dayer on Sunday 26th June at IKLECTIK.

A lot of tickets were sold through the Kickstarter campaign, but there are a limited number available from our Luminous Bandcamp site. Grab yours now and we’ll see you there for a great day of music!

The line-up, in reverse order of appearance, is:

Article XI (Manchester)
Freewheeling large ensemble led by guitarist Anton Hunter, with: Oliver Dover (alto sax), Tom Ward (tenor sax), Cath Roberts (baritone sax), Johnny Hunter (drums), Seth Bennett (bass), Graham South, Nick Walters (trumpet), Tullis Rennie, Richard Foote (trombone)

Blueblut (Austria)
Coming over from Austria! With Led Bib’s Mark Holub (drums), Pamela Stickney (theremin) and Chris Janka (guitar)

Kjær/Musson/Marshall (London)
Fantastic trio of Julie Kjær (alto sax), Rachel Musson (tenor sax) and Hannah Marshall (cello)

Little Church (Birmingham)
Quintet led by David Austin Grey (nord/synth/FX) playing compositions inspired by Miles Davis electric period featuring Rachael Cohen (alto sax), Chris Mapp (bass/electronics) and Tymek Joswiak (drums).

Hot Beef Three (Leeds)
Trio with some of Leeds’ finest improvisers: Oliver Dover (saxes), Andrew Lisle (drums), Craig Scott (guitar)

Ant Traditions (Manchester)
Top notch Manchester improv from Adam Fairhall (toy pianos) and Dave Birchall (electric guitar)

Word Of Moth (London)
Collaborative quartet from the founders of LUME: Dee Byrne (alto sax), Cath Roberts (baritone sax), Seth Bennett (bass), Tom Greenhalgh (drums)

We’ll also have artist Gina Southgate capturing the day on canvas!

Doors 1pm, music 1.30pm-10.30pm, with late bar afterwards.

IKLECTIK, Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, SE1 7LG.

The festival is generously supported by Arts Council England, the Austrian Cultural Forum and 131 Kickstarter backers.

8th May @ The Vortex: Sloth Racket (album launch) & ELDA

A double bill of touring bands this month, as Cath Roberts launches her Sloth Racket album ‘Triptych’ and Andrew Woodhead brings his improvising trio ELDA from Birmingham.

Sloth Racket

Sloth Racket is a quintet of UK improvisers led by baritone saxophonist Cath Roberts, with Anton Hunter (Beats & Pieces Big Band, Article XI) on guitar, Sam Andreae (Trio Riot, Silence Blossoms) on tenor saxophone, Seth Bennett (Metamorphic, En Bas Quartet) on bass and Johnny Hunter (Nat Birchall, Johnny Hunter Quartet) on drums. The group play Cath’s compositions, in the form of frameworks for improvisation: combining composed fragments with graphic notation to explore the balance between freedom and structure. In November 2015 they gathered to record at Limefield Studio in Manchester with John Ellis (Cinematic Orchestra) engineering. The resulting session, on a cold and rainy evening fuelled by coffee and pizza, produced three substantial tracks that range across musical territories from fiery free jazz, to minimal improv textures, to deep grooves. The album ‘Triptych’ is released in May 2016 on the Luminous label.

Cath Roberts baritone saxophone
Sam Andreae tenor saxophone
Anton Hunter guitar
Seth Bennett bass
Johnny Hunter drums

ELDA

Andrew Woodhead’s latest project ELDA is a collaboration with Norwegian vocalist Kari Eskild Havenstrøm (Trondheim Voices, Kristoffer Lo) and trumpeter Aaron Diaz (The Destroyers, Sid Peacock), mixing acoustic sounds with live electronics and soundscapes. Andrew and Kari met on a musical exchange between Trondheim and Birmingham at the 2013 Cheltenham Jazz Festival, and formed this trio with Aaron to continue their collaboration and explore their shared musical interests.

Andrew Woodhead keyboard/electronics
Aaron Diaz trumpet/electronics
Kari Eskild Havenstrøm vocals/FX

16th April @ Hundred Years Gallery: Madwort Sax Quartet (live album recording)

We’re very happy to welcome Madwort Sax Quartet to Hundred Years Gallery for an important event in the group’s life: the making of their debut album. This gig will be recorded by Alex Bonney for a future release. Having played a sold-out gig at Manchester Jazz Festival in the summer – ably assisted at the last minute by LUME’s own Dee Byrne – the quartet are now back on home turf for this special performance.

Playing Tom Ward’s compositions, the band explores irregular grooves and unusual harmonies inspired by mathematics and numerology, framed by the intuitive expressionism of free improvisation. This is a challenging line-up that allows for beautifully blended harmonies, intricate polyrhythms and abrasive dissonances. Inspirations include the movement of the planet earth through space, Steve Coleman, pioneering saxophone quartet Rova, Tim Berne, and transcriptions of bird song.

“The group’s sychronisation, the engaging, rounded brass sound and the impressive ease with which the four musicians blended to dish out a significantly distinctive musical proposition” – LondonJazzNews.com

Tom Ward alto sax/compositions
Chris Williams alto/soprano sax
Andy Woolf tenor sax
Cath Roberts bari sax

Hundred Years Gallery, 13 Pearson Street, E2 8JD. Doors 8pm, music 8.30pm. One Bank of England note. Tickets are available in advance from the Luminous Bandcamp site.

3rd April @ The Vortex: Dave Kane Quartet & Corey Mwamba/Cath Roberts/Olie Brice

We have a great double bill for you this month: free improvisation and original music from two fantastic UK bands! As usual at The Vortex it’s doors at 7.30pm, with the music starting around 8pm. Advance tickets are £8 from the Vortex website, or it’s £10 on the door.

Dave Kane Quartet

The quartet will be playing music from their forthcoming album, to be released on Two Rivers Records later this year. Dave says:

‘This music is my own personal reflection and dedication to the jazz lineage, all of the music that I have listened to and the music that has influenced me the most. Each track on the record is a dedication to a composer/person that has influenced me greatly throughout my career. There are tracks dedicated to the following people: Charles Mingus, John Zorn, Hamid Drake, Eric Dolphy and Henry Threadgill. For me “The jazz lineage” means the records that are in my collection… my own personal lineage to the tradition, and my resulting music as a composer influenced and shaped by the music. Most people think of the jazz tradition as jazz standards, etc. This is not what I do, or what I am interested in. I have always listened to more adventurous composers & musicians who always pushed the music forward. This is what I have achieved with my new record. Although this music is still on the contemporary/avant garde side of jazz… I would say it is some of the most accessible music I have ever written.’

Dave Kane double bass

James Allsopp saxophones, clarinet

Alex Bonney cornet/trumpet

Joost Hendrickx drums

Corey Mwamba/Cath Roberts/Olie Brice

An improvising trio of vibraphone, baritone sax and bass, this group first played together in 2014 and brings together three musicians active on the UK jazz and improvised music scene. Olie Brice leads his own quartet as well as playing in numerous other collaborations including a trio with Toby Delius and Mark Sanders; BABs with Alex Bonney and James Allsopp; Nick Malcolm Quartet; Loz Speyer’s Inner Space Music; and Alex Ward Quintet/Sextet. Cath Roberts leads two groups playing her compositions, Sloth Racket and Quadraceratops, as well as writing and improvising new music with guitarist Anton Hunter as Ripsaw Catfish. She is a member of the Madwort Sax Quartet, Anton Hunter’s Article XI, the eight-piece improvising saxophone group Saxoctopus and the collaborative quartet Word Of Moth. Corey Mwamba leads his own trio, Yana, and is involved in a variety of other groups including Sonsale; duos with Rachel Musson, Orphy Robinson and Robert Mitchell; Martin Archer’s large ensemble Engine Room Favourites; and Nat Birchall’s quintet. He is recognised as a highly creative improviser and composer working across a wide range of jazz and contemporary music, as well as a programmer of forward-looking music in his home city of Derby.

Corey Mwamba vibraphone

Cath Roberts baritone saxophone

Olie Brice bass

LUME at EFG London Jazz Festival 2015

For this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival, LUME is curating an afternoon of music on the Barbican freestage on Saturday 14th November. Join us on a voyage of contemporary sounds! As the stage name suggests, it’s free entry, so just come down to the Barbican foyer and settle in for the ride…

12 noon: Corey Mwamba & Rachel Musson

Spontaneous, living music in-the-moment from two of the UK’s finest improvisers.

Corey Mwamba vibraphone
Rachel Musson tenor saxophone

12.30pm: Colin Webster & Andrew Lisle

Fiery, free-wheeling sax and drums duo from DIY improv/noise label Raw Tonk Records.
Colin Webster saxophones
Andrew Lisle drums

2pm: Entropi

Space jazz quintet led by Dee Byrne, currently making waves with their debut album ‘New Era’. Juggling order and chaos, composition and improvisation, they take listeners on an exploration of the musical cosmos.

Dee Byrne alto saxophone
Andre Canniere trumpet
Rebecca Nash keyboards
Olie Brice bass
Matt Fisher drums

3pm: Sloth Racket

Brand new group formed for Gateshead Jazz Festival 2015 by Cath Roberts. Improvisers from Manchester, Leeds, Macclesfield and London navigate a set of experimental graphic scores, using them as a jumping-off point for freely improvised group explorations.

Sam Andreae tenor saxophone
Anton Hunter guitar
Cath Roberts baritone saxophone
Seth Bennett bass
Johnny Hunter drums

6pm: Madwort’s Menagerie

Intricate compositions and delicate textures from Tom Ward’s chamber jazz sextet, with a diverse collection of instruments played by high-calibre improvisers from across the London creative music scene.

Tom Ward bass clarinet, composition
Julie Kjaer flute, alto flute
Alex Bonney trumpet
Magnus Dearness trombone
Adam Spiers cello
Tim Fairhall double bass

9th July: LUME is 2! Birthday gig at Hundred Years Gallery

This week we’re decamping to Hundred Years Gallery once more, for a special gig to celebrate our second birthday! We have assembled a nebulous ensemble of musicians – from the London jazz/improvised music scene and beyond – to take part in a series of improvised performances. Who plays in each set will be determined using our dice and hat method, inspired by the long-running Manchester night The Noise Upstairs.

Musicians confirmed so far…

Seth Bennett
Adam Fairhall
Colin Webster
Hannah Marshall
Corey Mwamba
Joe Wright
Johnny Hunter
Martin Pyne
Olie Brice
Tom Ward
James Opstad
Andrew Lisle
Ed Riches
Tom Taylor
Dee Byrne
Cath Roberts

…with others possibly to be announced! (Although we might leave it there because we want everyone to play…)

Live At LUME

The evening will also function as the launch of our ‘Live At LUME’ fundraiser compilation; an album of live performances recorded at LUME gigs, donated by a bunch of our favourite musicians. This is available as a download, plus we’ve also produced special CD editions with hand-printed sleeves. All proceeds go towards our running costs for the next year of LUME gigs. Grab your copy on here or at the gig!

Entry is, as usual, one Bank of England note of your choice. Doors 7.30pm, music 8pm. We’d love to see you there as we mark two years of LUME activity. Bring your friends!

Hundred Years Gallery is just around the corner from Hoxton station at 13 Pearson Street, E2 8JD.