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
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!
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.
Efpi Records is delighted to announce the release of a collection of live recordings from Stockholm-based Silence Blossoms. The collection is in two parts – a cassette of lo-fi tracks recorded on a single pair of microphones at venues around Sweden, and a digital download of a higher quality recording from Skurup in the south of the country. The collection will be released in collaboration with Swedish label Ljup on November 5th, and is available to pre-order soon from our online shop.
Silence Blossoms was brought together by saxophonist Sam Andreae in 2010. Sam’s saxophone and electronics feature alongside the multiple instruments of Gus Loxbo and the haunting vocals of Hanna Olivegren, with this core trio often joined by guest musicians. The band’s compositions combine contemporary poetry with influences as diverse as Scandinavian folk and improvised noise music to produce a sound that is beautiful yet often terrifying, inspired in equal parts by contemporary song poets such as Leonard Cohen and Bonnie Prince Billy and free improvisers such as Evan Parker and Derek Bailey.
Silence Blossoms will be launching this live collection at their first ever UK show, during the London Jazz Festival at The Forge in Camden on Sunday 18th November (1.30pm). They will also be playing at Efpi’s Freedom Principle series at Sandbar in Manchester on Tuesday 20th November (8.30pm).
Check out the video below for a sneak preview of the cassette, and hear an interview with Sam about the band and their music on the first of Efpi’s brand new podcast series.
We’re now only a couple of weeks away from the London Jazz Festival, and once again there’s a number of Efpi artists gearing up to take part… Here’s a quick run down of some stuff to catch:
1) Beats & Pieces Big Band + Ensemble Denada – Purcell Room, Sunday 11th 3pm (info) and 7.45pm (info)
Collaboration between Beats & Pieces and Ensemble Denada from Norway, led by composer and trombonist Helge Sunde. Both bands will be playing brand new music, including some written especially for this concert – its going to be a fun one!
2) Efpi presents… Silence Blossoms + Alice Zawadzki Band – The Forge, Sunday 18th 1.30pm(info)
For the second year running we’re really pleased to be presenting an afternoon of music by Efpi artists and friends at the Forge in Camden. This year we’ve got the first ever UK gig by Silence Blossoms (launching their brand new collection of live recordings, released on November 5th) alongside the always amazing Alice Zawadzki Band (featuring Kit Downes, Alex Roth and Jon Scott). What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon… For more information on this gig check out Ben’s preview on the LondonJazz blog.
3) Trio Riot + Julie Kjær’s Cardboard Whale – Servant Jazz Quarters, Wednesday 14th 8pm (info)
This one isn’t part of the official jazz festival programme but its in London during the festival so it still counts! Trio Riot return to England following their tours in last November and earlier in 2012, ahead of their imminent new album recording… They’ll be performing with Danish saxophonist and flautist Julie Kjær’s Cardboard Whale quintet for an evening of freedom, exuberance and Scandinavian delights
Hope to see you at one (if not all!) of those gigs in London, or if you’re not based in the big smoke Trio Riot will be playing across the UK from the 8th til 13th (check listings page for venues and dates) and Silence Blossoms and Alice Zawadzki will be in Manchester at our very own Freedom Principle night on Tuesday 20th – no excuse! Keep an eye out for our very orange flyers too…
The past couple of Freedom Principle gigs in October have probably been two of my favourite ones ever… At the beginning of the month we had three of the country’s leading improvising musicians in Corey Mwamba and Dave Kane (top picture) alongside Chris Sharkey, and then continuing with the series of ‘Anton’s favourite guitarists’ we then had an incredible double bill of Mike Walker and Stuart McCallum (bottom picture) a couple of weeks later.
Next month promises to continue the awesomeness of the gigs – first up on November 6th we have a new project from Beats & Pieces saxophonist Ben Watte, combining elements of jazz with dubstep and other electronic music, alongside a new trio from guitarist Dan Brew. Then on November 20th we have Efpi co-founder Sam Andreae who brings his band Silence Blossoms all the way from Sweden to play their second ever UK show and launch their brand new collection of live recordings available on Efpi; alongside Freedom Principle favourite Alice Zawadzki, here stripped down in a duo with the returning Stuart McCallum.
Apologies to anyone who was hoping to see Roller Trio on November 6th – unfortunately due to other commitments thrust upon them by their recent Mercury nomination they are now unable to perform, but send their apologies… Thanks though to Dan and his trio for stepping in at short notice!
Here is the first in our brand new podcast series, this month curated by Ben Cottrell. Here he chats with fellow Efpi co-founder Sam Andreae about Silence Blossoms, a great band that Sam formed in Sweden two years ago and who are preparing to play their first ever UK gigs next month to mark the release of a collection of live recordings from around Sweden (released November 5th on Efpi Records, in collaboration with the Ljup label in Sweden).
In the podcast you’ll hear music that you won’t be able to hear online anywhere else, as the tracks played will only be available on old-school audio cassette… Sam also talks about the formation of the band and the compositional process, previews Silence Blossoms’ upcoming UK gigs (details below) as well as giving an idea of what to expect from future podcast editions – this whole thing was his idea!
If you like what you hear, you can catch Silence Blossoms and purchase the live collection in concert (alongside the awesome Alice Zawadzki for both dates) in the UK in November:
18th November – The Forge, Camden (London Jazz Festival) more info/tickets here
20th November – Sandbar, Manchester (Freedom Principle) more info/tickets here
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