Category Archives: joy

See you in 2016!

Well, that’s it for 2015 and it’s been another fantastic year of LUME! Thanks to everyone who has supported us by coming out to the gigs, and to all the amazing artists that have graced our stage(s). We’re also massively grateful to Arts Council England for supporting both LUME On Tour and our 2015/16 season.

We wish you all a relaxing and merry festive season and a Happy New Year! We’ll be back in January. Here’s our current flyer as a reminder of what’s coming up in early 2016….

Artwork, as ever, by Peter Beatty.

17th December @ Hundred Years Gallery: The Hat Speaks!

For our last gig of 2015 we return to Hundred Years Gallery in Hoxton, for the second edition of our dice-and-hat improvised music night. We held the first one in July to celebrate our second birthday, and it was so much fun we decided to do it again. As before, a nebulous ensemble of UK improvisers will gather to make spontaneous music together. This time the list looks like this:

Alison Blunt
Alex Bonney
Dee Byrne
Tim Fairhall
Tom Greenhalgh
Anton Hunter
Andrew Lisle
Percy Pursglove
Martin Pyne
Tullis Rennie
Ed Riches
Cath Roberts
Tom Ward
Colin Webster

….plus new additions Seth Bennett and Tori Handsley!

Taking inspiration from long-running Manchester night The Noise Upstairs (founded by Anton Hunter and Tullis Rennie no less), we will put all the players’ names into a hat, throw the dice to determine how many musicians will play, and then draw out the names. The result is lots of mini- sets from often completely new combinations of people! Some groups from last time have decided to carry on playing together too: Tom Ward and Adam Fairhall are now collaborating on a new quartet for 2016 after their hat encounter in the Summer!

Do join us for this last gig of the year – it’s been a blast, so let’s see it off in style! Entry, as usual, is one Bank of England note of your choice. Doors 7.30pm, first roll of the dice 8pm.

Hundred Years Gallery, 13 Pearson Street, London E2 8JD.

6th December @ The Vortex: Deemer (Interference Patterns album launch) & Survival Skills

This month at the Vortex, a special evening of improvised music with electronics for the launch of the first release on our new Luminous label! Tonight LUME welcomes Deemer, who are releasing their debut album ‘Interference Patterns’ on Monday 7th December. They are joined on the other side of the bill by multi-instrumentalist Chris Sharkey, playing a Survival Skills solo set.

Deemer
The brain-child of Merijn Royaards and Dee Byrne, Deemer started life in 2006 as a weekly improvisation/electronics session in a warehouse in Hackney Wick. The project has since evolved into an installation/performance based electro-acoustic two-piece orchestra, whose aural narratives are created within fluid frameworks that map a trajectory in time, but leave the sonic textures and compositions entirely free and undetermined. Deemer employ, among other things, alto saxophone, analogue electronics, tape, transducer microphones/speakers to instantly compose, activate space, and blur the boundaries between free jazz and sound installation.

Survival Skills
Survival Skills is the solo project of Chris Sharkey (trioVD, Acoustic Ladyland, Shiver). It has no fixed instrumentation but the music is often comprised of various processed layers created in real time by hardware including synths, sequencers, cassette recordings, vocals and guitar…

‘ a lo-fi vision of mangled techno, where beats cluster and stumble in their fight for dominance; a highly intriguing piece of noise art.’ – data transmission

As usual, doors are at 7.30pm and the music will start at 8pm. See you there!

Poster by Cath Roberts.

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

1st November: Tom Taylor/Rob Luft and Cath Roberts/Seth Bennett/Andrew Lisle at The Vortex

For our November Vortex gig, we welcome a duo and a trio to the stage, for a night of improvised music.

Cath Roberts/Seth Bennett/Andrew Lisle

The first meeting of a new improvising trio. Andrew Lisle is known for being one of the drummers in heavyweight Leeds anarcho-sextet Shatner’s Bassoon, and as a prolific improviser working with a multitude of musicians on the free scene: Colin Webster, Alex Ward, Daniel Thompson, Tom Wheatley and more. Seth Bennett leads his own ensembles Nut Club and En Bas Quartet, as well as being involved in many other projects across musical styles including Fragments Trio, Metamorphic and The Horse Loom. Seth and Cath play together as a duo, as well as in Word of Moth and Cath’s quintet Sloth Racket. Cath also leads Quadraceratops, a septet, and has a duo with guitarist Anton Hunter, Ripsaw Catfish.

Cath Roberts baritone saxophone

Seth Bennett bass

Andrew Lisle drums

Tom Taylor/Rob Luft

This duo featuring Tom Taylor and Rob Luft is a recent collaboration borne out of a mutual love of improvised music. The music draws attention to the many common features of the two instruments, and mixes high-intensity improvisation with more tender and reflective textures.

Tom Taylor piano

Rob Luft guitar

As usual it’s doors 7.30pm, with the music starting at 8pm. Tickets are £10. See you there!

Vortex Jazz Club, 11 Gillett Square, London, N16 8JH.

Poster by Cath Roberts.

LUME is taking a summer break!

We’re taking a longer summer break this year. After two years packed with weekly gigs and everything else, it’s time to chill out and reflect on the serious amounts of larks we’ve had…and plan a totally kick-ass new version of LUME for 2015/16, obviously.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far: all the amazing musicians who’ve played at our gigs and the lovely audience members who’ve come along for the ride. We couldn’t have done it without you – as in, we literally couldn’t, as we wouldn’t have had any bands or audience. So THANKS!

It just remains for us to wish you all a great summer and to reassure/warn you that, Terminator-style, we’ll be back…

Cath and Dee

The excellent Joe Wright took this photo at the LUME is 2 gig, Hundred Years Gallery, 9th July.

23rd July: Inner Space Music

For our last gig of the season we welcome trumpeter and composer Loz Speyer and his group Inner Space Music. Join us for a night of new composition and improvisation before the Lumefish goes on holiday for a well-earned break! Music starts at 8.30pm. Entry: One Bank of England note of your choice.

Inner Space Music

In the footsteps of the likes of Ellington, Mingus and Ornette Coleman, Inner Space Music takes improvisation into new territory, and frames it within a set of strongly melodic tunes with references going back into jazz history. Compositions such as Rocket Science and From A to B to Infinity play around with a combination of fast, slow and free time, as a flexible framework for improvising, exploring the fine line between structure and freedom that is a central theme in the jazz tradition.

Loz Speyer trumpet, flugelhorn

Chris Biscoe alto sax, alto clarinet

Rachel Musson tenor/soprano sax

Olie Brice double bass

Gary Willcox drums

‘There was something utterly warm and personal about this gig, and very moving. Though the leader’s trumpet was often to the fore, his role seemed as much to create situations that forced the band to think on their feet or to stitch together fragments of a tune with frantic signalling as the moment dictated…’ – Mike Collins, Jazzyblogman

16th July: Nick Costley-White & Bleep Test

We’ve got a tasty double bill for you this Thursday with solo guitar explorations from Nick Costly-White and an exciting new electronic jazz ensemble mixing beats and tunes. Should be a great evening of cutting edge new sounds. As usual it’s doors 8pm, music 8.30pm. Entry is one Bank of England note of your choice. (£5, £10, £20…. £50???!)

Bleep Test

Led by saxophonist Fraser Smith, Bleep Test combines house, breaks, drum & bass and jazz. Analog Synths, electric drums and screaming saxophones tie this band to the growing scene of exciting, genre defying music groups emerging from London’s creative underground. Fiery grooves and memorable melodies push these musicians out of the traditional jazz improvisation realm and into another soundscape that hits hard.

Fraser Smith tenor sax/effects

Joe Webb synths

Lloyd Haines drums

Matthew Read bass

Nick Costley-White

Nick is fast becoming one of the most in demand young guitarists in the London jazz scene. With a developed sound and individual voice on his instrument, Nick has had the opportunity to perform professionally with some of the country’s finest musicians including Stan Sulzmann, Jeff Williams, Gareth Lockrane, Tom Challenger, Martin Speake, Ivo Neame, Tommy Andrews, Jon Scott, Dave Hamblet and Josh Arcoleo.

Nick studied Jazz and Classical guitar at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Phil Robson, Colin Oxley and John Parricelli, graduating with first class honours and awarded the 2011 Yamaha Jazz Scholarship for Outstanding Musicians.

“Fluent and sensitive” John Fordham, The Guardian

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.

2nd July: Noel Taylor/Lawrence Casserley/Guillaume Viltard & Daniel Thompson

Our July gigs open with this double bill of improvised music: a fantastic trio put together by Noel Taylor, and a solo set from Daniel Thompson. As usual it’s doors at 8pm, with the music starting around 8.30pm. Entry is one Bank of England note of your choice.

Noel Taylor/Lawrence Casserley/Guillaume Viltard

Noel Taylor sent us this scene-setting paragraph on the trio…

“Electronics wizard Lawrence Casserley is something of a phantom, a ghost musician, a mute who can only speak through the voices of others. He has no sound of his own, but, like a parasite feeding on its host, uses the analogue input from the clarinet of Noel Taylor and the contrabass of Guillaume Viltard to function as triggers for his electronic re-shaping. Their sounds become bounced back to them mangled, distorted, re-imagined: producing weirdly spectral reflections of their playing. It is a musical circuit diagram, a feedback loop of potentially infinite regression. It presents to them conflicting impulses, in which the immediate past struggles with the immediacy of the present. The process creates a music of shifting hierarchies in which puppet and puppet master constantly swap places, but which can nevertheless discover a formal and crystalline coherence. ”

Noel Taylor clarinets

Lawrence Casserley electronics

Guillaume Viltard bass

Daniel Thompson

Daniel is a prolific improviser, extremely active on the London free scene, and organises the monthly Foley Street improvised music concert series at the King and Queen pub in the West End. Originally from Norfolk and largely self-taught on the guitar, Daniel moved to London in 2006 and studied with the guitarist and Mopomoso co-founder John Russell. He has performed/collaborated with numerous improvisers including Neil Metcalfe, Adam Bohman, Terry Day, Simon Rose, Ricardo Tejero, Steve Noble, Alex Ward, Phil Durrant, Kay Grant, Benedict Taylor, Roland Ramanan, Mark Sanders, Anton Mobin, Tom Jackson, Javier Carmona and Julie Kjaer amongst many others. We’re very much looking forward to hearing him play a solo guitar set for us this week.

This promises to be a fantastic evening: see you at Long White Cloud!