Category Archives: Yeah

LUME @ Hundred Years Gallery in July & August 2021

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

New Luminous website and mailing list

In recent months we’ve found ourselves posting on this blog about new releases on the LUME offshoot label, Luminous. No longer! The label now has a shiny new website all of its own. On there you can read about all the releases on the label so far (including the new Deemer + 1 album coming next month), and information about the artists.

There is also a new mailing list for the label, so do sign up if you’d like to be kept updated on future releases and label-related activities….

New on Luminous! Exabout: Live In Ramsgate by Sloth Racket

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.

New Luminous release: Dee Byrne & Cath Roberts – Disembark!

Announcing a very special new album! LUME founders Cath Roberts and Dee Byrne release their first duo recording Disembark! today on Luminous. Recorded by Cath at Gun Factory Studios in April 2019, it was mixed by Alex Bonney and has original album artwork by Dee. Disembark! is a series of short, spontaneous improvisations that explore a dramatic range of textures, whilst maintaining the sense of an ongoing, inquisitive conversation. The recording came about after a series of live duo performances; going into the studio seemed like the next logical step. The release was originally planned for earlier in the summer, with a five date duo tour booked and ready to go, but that plan was derailed by the pandemic. Now, we’ve decided to get the music out there!

Dee and Cath have played together in many different ensembles since they started working together, most recently in February this year with MoonMot (see previous blog post), touring the UK and Europe to mark the sextet’s debut album just before COVID-19 shut all the venues down. Playing together as musicians has been part of a larger context, combined with running LUME projects together and releasing music through Luminous. It feels like a long time since the first release, Live At Lume Vol.1 in July 2015 – a collection of bootleg recordings from performances at LUME’s then regular night at The Long White Cloud in Hoxton. The label grew out of those Live At LUME fundraiser albums, and now five years on, Disembark! will be the thirteenth release on Luminous. With more scheduled this Autumn, we recommend you keep your ear to the ground!

Disembark! is available as a digital album via Bandcamp. No physical copies for now, but ask us again when touring is back on…

LUME on The Hello Goodbye Show: Winter Solstice 2019 Takeover!

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…

23 November 2019: LUME Barbican Free Stage slots at EFG London Jazz Festival

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

A great year for Luminous releases!

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…

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…

Thanks for a great festival!

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)

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