Anton Hunter – guitar
James Adolpho – double bass
Johnny Hunter – drums
Here on record for the first time leading his own trio, this marks a new phase in Anton’s career, the results have already been compared to such varied artists as Tortoise, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Bill Frisell. More introspective and spacious than his work with HAQ or the Beats & Pieces Big Band, there is, as ever, still plenty of room for freedom and exploration within the structures, whilst not letting go of his melodic tendencies.
“…debut at this year’s Manchester Jazz Festival got everyone talking” Band On The Wall
“strong melodies, allied to a sense of exploratory improvised adventure” Jazz At The Lescar
The release comes on either digital download or special hand-made limited edition CD with artwork by the ever-amazing Angela Guyton. And if you’re quick, there a discount code to celebrate today being International Jazz Day. Just put “jazzday” in when completing checkout to get a whopping 20% off the digital download, hurry though, the code runs out on Monday 6th.
There’s still chance to buy them in person too, the album launch gig is at Matt & Phred’s in Manchester tomorrow (Wednesday 1st May) and the trio will also be playing at The Oxford in London on Monday 6th.
We’re pleased to announce our very own Anton Hunter is doing a short UK tour in April/May to promote his newest group, the ground-breakingly titled “Anton Hunter Trio”.
This is all going to be in support of a brand new recording on Efpi, and here’s a sneak preview for your ears right now.
Setting out on tour for the first time leading his own trio, this marks a new phase in Anton’s career, the results have already been compared to such varied artists as Tortoise, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Bill Frisell. More introspective and spacious than his work with HAQ or the Beats & Pieces Big Band, there is, as ever, still plenty of room for freedom and exploration within the structures, whilst not letting go of his melodic tendencies.
“…debut at this year’s Manchester Jazz Festival got everyone talking” Band On The Wall
“strong melodies, allied to a sense of exploratory improvised adventure” Jazz At The Lescar
This month’s podcast features some live recordings from our Freedom Principle series at Sandbar, alongside a look ahead to what’s in store for us in new venues.
Tracklisting
1. Qrt 2 by Anton Hunter, feat. Sam Andreae (alto sax), Will Lenton (tenor sax), Simon Prince (tenor sax), Ben Cottrell (baritone sax)
2. Arms 1 by A Greater Horror; Rodrigo Constanzo (keys), Mauricio Pauly (bass) & Alex Tod (drums)
3. Relentless by WorldService Project; Dave Morecroft (keys), Raph Clarkson (trombone), Tim Ower (saxes), Liam Waugh (drums), Conor Chaplin (bass)
4. #3 by Bagpipes For Pluto; Francesco Bigoni (tenor sax, clarinet), Markus Pesonen (guitar), Adam Pultz Melbye (double bass), Håkon Berre (drums)
Future Freedom Principle dates will all be announced in due course, including something very exciting in July, but put these in your diaries NOW…
Tues 16th April – WorldService Project @ Dulcimer, Chorlton
Podcast no. 5 (curated by me, Sam) reaches new levels of hilarity and hi-jinx with an interview featuring the delightful Shatner’s Bassoon when they came over to Manchester last week to play at Freedom Principle. The track you hear at the end is “This Is How You Make A Buck” from their new album (Aquatic Ape Privilege) which is out on Wasp Millionaire Records. In the interview you’ll be hearing from Johnny Richards, Mick Bardon, Ollie Dover, Craig Scott, Andrew Lisle and Joost Hendrickx who (as you’ll hear) could take up a long and fruitful career in team stand-up comedy if they decided this improv malarkey wasn’t for them.
Feels a little weird to be announcing our ‘spring’ season whilst its snowing outside, but hopefully by the time February comes around there’ll be birds and daffodils and everything! And we’ll be kicking off our short but sweet Spring season with some really exciting gigs… As well as Manchester bands Johnny Hunter Quartet, Badger the Hermit and A Greater Horror, we’ll be welcoming saxophonist Pete Lyons over from Sheffield and the much talked about Shatner’s Bassoon from the always innovative Leeds scene.
Also really exciting is is a series of one-off “project” commissions that will be performed as the first set on some nights. This is something that we’re introducing for the first time this season with projects led by Efpi co-founders Sam Andreae and Anton Hunter, and we’re all pretty eager to see what will happen with these first two projects and beyond! The premise is that we ask different musicians/composers to be in charge of putting together a set of music in collaboration with some/all of the featured act, with the likely possibility of involving local musicians too. By the nature of these commissions (sometimes the musicians will have never met before the night itself, and have very little rehearsal time) the results will be spontaneous and often somewhat a work in progress, which we think will be fascinating for audiences to be a part of. Each featured artist will have to develop a workable composition or concept for this situation, and we’re really excited about hearing the results!
Dates are as follows:
5th February – Pete Lyons LX:V Quintet + Johnny Hunter Quartet
19th February – Shatner’s Bassoon + Sam Andreae project
5th March – Badger the Hermit + Anton Hunter project
19th March – A Greater Horror + Sam Andreae (solo)
Full details and descriptions of all bands over on the Freedom Principle page, along with all the info for timings, location etc. As ever, all of this will cost you £3 to enjoy – remember that 100% of that money goes directly to the musicians, in many cases just to pay for their travel rather than as any sort of fee. Thanks in anticipation for your continued support, we wouldn’t be able to keep doing this without people like YOU coming along to Sandbar.
Happy new year! For the first podcast of 2013, Ben assembled a crack team of musicians from amongst the Efpi family and friends in a barn in the middle of the Peak District to discuss both the musical year that was 2012 and the exciting things that are coming up in 2013… Our expert panel drawn from all over Europe consists of (in alphabetical order to avoid any arguments!) Sam Andreae, Moss Freed, Anton Hunter, Johnny Hunter, David Meier, Finlay Panter and Alice Zawadzki – all of those names above are hyperlinks which will take you to their own websites, where you can find out more information about the musicians themselves and some of the projects they discuss in the podcast.
More information on the other bands and musicians we talked about can be found via the links below – there’s some that aren’t in the list below but they’re either not online (according to google at least) or can be found on the individual musician’s website as linked to above.
Massive thanks to everyone involved for being informative and entertaining, hope you enjoy listening and find some new things to listen to in the coming year!
For the third podcast in our monthly series, I’ve interviewed Paddy Baxter, Huw Wahl and Insa Longhorst (aka Castles Built In Sand collective) about their new film ‘Helpyourself Manchester’. Their film is about a group of DIY gig promoters who started putting on gigs in Manchester in the early 2000′s, and aims to shine a light on the great work they did, and how it’s influenced the scene today.
We chat a bit about it all and play some of the tracks featured in the film.
Remember remember, the 5th of November… Silence Blossoms Live in Skurup + Live in Sweden is out now! Head on over to our shop to get involved and check out the video below for a brief clip of their launch concert in Stockholm yesterday.
The band perform in the UK in a couple of weeks – 18th November (1.30pm) at the Forge in Camden (London Jazz Festival), and 20th November at Efpi’s Freedom Principle night at Sandbar, Manchester. Alice Zawadzki will be appearing alongside the band at both dates.
Here is the second in our new series of music podcasts where this month I’ll be presenting a selection of music from Trondheim, the city which I’ve been living in the last year and a half. Located in middle Norway it’s a bit of a mystical jazz/improv/experimental haven, with many great musicians crammed into a small city.
A few Trondheim facts worth special mention; the jazz super-group (there’s a contradiction) Atomic were formed here; there are more experimental tuba players per capita than anywhere else in the world; rain, snow and “dark” are the main three weather types; and it has an astonishingly vibrant music scene (especially for such a small city).
Here are details of the bands and artists (in order) presented on the show, happy listening!:
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