You can hear that kind of spontaneous composition from track to track throughout Umbrella Weather, along with several scintillating solos that push well beyond the conventions of straight ahead jazz and into a place described by one writer as “dangerous and compelling.” Says Holub, “I am always interested in musicians who explore their own language, rather than just players who are 'good' on their instrument. I think that approach is something we have developed to the point that we never really discuss what is going to happen in the improvising.
#Big weather umbrella free
With some of the tunes, we are sort of composing in the moment, rather than the sort of free association that is often thought of as free-improv. This concept of free improvisation is a tricky one because it has become a genre all its own, but we are looking at it in a different way.
We are mostly working in a fairly typical jazz style of head-solos-head but in almost every tune the solos are completely open. And while certain pieces like “Ceasefire,” “The Boot” or the groove-heavy “Women’s Power” may seem like well-crafted and tightly executed compositions, Holub explains that most of the music heard on Umbrella Weather comes about organically in the studio through a keen sense of collective intuition honed over the past 13 years of playing together. All Music Guide called their singular brand of jazz “explosive enough to blow up your speakers” while The Wire weighed in with: “This is the sound of a band having fun.like a hot chainsaw through butter.” For their RareNoise Records debut, the five-piece group from London continues pushing the envelope on Umbrella Weather.įueled by the muscular drumming of ringleader Mark Holub and the savage fuzz bass lines of Liran Donin, further tweaked by atmospheric washes and crunchy keyboard comping from Toby McLaren and sparked by the pungent twin alto saxes of Peter Grogan and Chris Williams, Led Bib stakes out a unique spot in the musical terrain that falls somewhere between the realms of John Zorn, Ornette Coleman, Peter Brotzman and Eric Dolphy while also registering on the Slayer end of the Richter Scaler.įrom the odd-metered opener “Lobster Terror” to their raucous skronking on “Too Many Cooks,” from the fuzz-inflected mayhem of “Skeleton Key to the City” to the turbulent “At The Shopping Centre,” the expansive 50-minute ambient jam on “Insect Invasion” and the surprisingly lyrical waltz-time closer “Goodbye,” this renegade outfit never fails to inject an element of surprise into each potent track. Easily the most adventurous and audacious outfit on today’s UK jazz scene, Led Bib has built a reputation over the course of seven albums for expansive improvs and treks into genre-defying music of throbbing intensity.
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