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Review

Led Bib

Umbrella Weather

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by Ian Mann

January 24, 2017

/ ALBUM

Their tightest, most concentrated work to date, it's the sound of a band rejuvenated.

Led Bib

“Umbrella Weather”

(RareNoise Records)

It’s almost impossible to think that I’ve been listening to Led Bib’s music for over ten years. I first discovered the band back in the summer 2006 on a hot and sweaty night at the Vortex in North London where the enterprising young quintet were curating their own mini festival appropriately dubbed the “Dalston Summer Stew”.

I thoroughly enjoyed the band’s loud and uncompromising live performance and was also impressed by their then recently released début recording “Arboretum”, which remains something of a personal favourite to this day.

The intervening decade has seen the group continue to progress with a series of albums for a variety of labels and a Mercury Music Prize nomination for their third album, “Sensible Shoes” in 2009. Led Bib have never relinquished their uncompromising ‘outsider’ stance and their music has lost nothing of its power and intensity but nevertheless each album has represented a clear artistic progression despite never straying too far from the essential Led Bib template. In the early days drummer and leader Mark Holub wrote all of the group’s original material and inspired covers by rock artists such as David Byrne and David Bowie also found their way into the group’s live sets and albums. From “Sensible Shoes” onwards other members of the band began bringing compositions to the group which resulted in greater stylistic variety while remaining true to the essential spirit of this most closely knit of bands.

First convened in 2004 Led Bib’s line up has remained unchanged from the outset with Holub joined by Israeli born bassist Liran Donin, keyboard player Toby McLaren and twin alto saxophonists Pete Grogan and Chris Williams. The band members came together on the jazz course at Middlesex University and although they don’t quite live in one another’s pockets any more they are still the tightest and most cohesive of units with Holub still shaping their overall direction.

“Umbrella Weather” represents their sixth studio album and their first for a new label, RareNoise Records after a lengthy stint with the Cuneiform label. There was a suspicion that the band had reached an artistic peak with 2014’s “The People In Your Neighbourhood” and the individual members took some time out to work on other projects. Holub relocated from London to Vienna where he relished the chance to play with other musicians and formed the irreverent trio Blueblut with guitarist and sound artist Chris Janka and theremin player Pamelia Stickney, releasing two albums “Hurts So Gut” (2014) and “Butt Butt” (2016), both reviewed elsewhere on this site.

Something of Led Bib’s energy and humour found its way into Blueblut’s music and a re-energised Holub contacted his old band mates and asked them for their total commitment to making another Led Bib record. But this time things were different, the album was recorded at Janka’s studio in Vienna rather than in London with the individual members bringing in compositions previously unheard by the others, a change from their usual way of working in the close knit days of yore. Within this framework a strong emphasis was placed on improvisation with the solos left completely open but, paradoxically, the new circumstances have seen Led Bib produce their tightest, most concentrated work to date, twelve tightly focussed, relatively short pieces that have lost nothing of Led Bib’s bite and bile, humour and irreverence. It’s the sound of a band rejuvenated and still worthy of the sometimes unwanted ‘punk jazz’ label that was first hung around their collective neck over a decade ago. 

The album title has a political aspect to it. In the wake of Trump and Brexit Holub comments “there’s such a shit-storm outside it’s certainly Umbrella Weather”. And such is the intensity of the music that one sometimes gets the impression that some of these pieces are protest songs without words although Holub views the music as rising above politics “it’s music that unites us all” he comments “music that says something by just existing”. Unfortunately the album packaging doesn’t give details of the composers of the individual tracks, but Led Bib is such a collective entity that maybe they wanted it to be that way.

Opener “Lobster Terror” (sounds like a Holub title, I assume that he still wrote most of these pieces) fairly roars out of the blocks and is a welcome reminder of the now familiar Led Bib sound with its dense polyrhythmic grooves, dirty, glitchy keyboards and duelling alto saxes. John Zorn, Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time, Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy have all been cited as influences on Led Bib’s music with the band also acknowledging Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp and Tim Berne, but right from the beginning Led Bib have had their own sound. Holub may originate from New York but Led Bib’s music is filtered through an unmistakably London perspective. There’s also an influence from rock music, particularly in terms of attitude with Holub naming Frank Zappa, Bob Dylan, The Kinks, Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, Grateful Dead and even Pink Floyd as influences, plus Byrne and Bowie as mentioned above – and surely Zeppelin too, Mark?

I’ve read that “Ceasefire” is McLaren’s tune and the piece progresses from a grandiose opening fanfare to a relentless, tightly focussed bass and drum groove underpinning writhing Middle Eastern inflected alto sax melodies and the composer’s own wonderfully eclectic sci-fi style keyboards. McLaren is a wonderfully eclectic and imaginative presence throughout the album, adding a pleasing unpredictability to the group’s music.

“On The Roundabout” mixes numerous stylistic elements with the group’s customary irreverence, a glorious mix of the whimsical and the belligerent with its mix of earthy saxes and spacey keyboards, bludgeoning riffs and mysterious impressionistic reflections. It’s one of the album’s lengthiest cuts and the way in which the group build the drama in the second half of the piece is truly impressive, giving the piece a genuinely epic quality.

“Field Of Forgetfulness” emerges from a shared alto conversation and progresses at a relatively sedate pace by Led Bib’s standards as each saxophonist subsequently has his say. But the shuffling bass and drum grooves and the sinister sounds of McLaren’s keyboards still give the piece an edge which becomes sharper as the music gains power and momentum. By the close it’s Led Bib in typically full on mode as the saxes coalesce once more.

An unaccompanied drum salvo from Holub introduces the brief but angry swirl of “Too Many Cooks” which features each band member going at it full tilt, hence the title I guess.

And it’s Holub’s military style tattoos that drive “Women’s Power” with its angrily fuzzed up bass and keyboards and raucously squalling saxes. McLaren’s keyboards offer periods of brief reflection but overall the piece does indeed generate an awesome power.

It’s McLaren’s funk infused keyboards that introduce “Insect Invasion” but the piece soon takes a left turn with a more freely structured main section featuring the intertwining saxes of Grogan and Williams, these later joined by bass, drums and more widely roaming keyboards as the music gains power and momentum culminating in a typical Led Bib riff.

“At The Shopping Centre” exhibits a gritty, febrile urgency with its busy, rolling grooves, blistering staccato sax attack and general keyboard mayhem prior to a more impressionistic central section.  This is followed what sounds like an extended jam with McLaren’s keyboards prominent prior to the return of the opening theme and the twin saxes towards the close. For all their ferocity Led Bib’s tunes invariably offer a consistently interesting element of light and shade.

And that concept of dynamic contrast is further encapsulated by “Skeleton Key To The City” which begins with a gentle sax conversation before erupting into a menacing fuzz fuelled fanfare, this followed by an infectiously buoyant bass and drum groove that forms the framework for further sax and keyboard extemporisations as the group continue to ramp up the intensity culminating in a excoriating climax.

Holub’s drums steer sinister slow-burner “The Boot” which is sometimes reminiscent of Polar Bear with its long, intertwining sax melody lines and implacable grooves.

Chris Williams wrote the tune “Marching Orders” which opens with a typically ebullient Led Bib riff featuring the stentorian blast of the twin altos fuelled by Holub’s martial drumming. But in keeping with other pieces on the record this is contrasted with a very different central section featuring the other worldly sounds of McLaren’s keyboards, this presumably expressing the sense of “melancholy sadness” about which Williams spoke in a recent interview for Jazzwise magazine conducted by Nick Hasted. When the band kick in again there’s a real sense of a genuine release, a true catharsis.

Appropriately the album concludes with “Goodbye”, an unexpectedly gentle and lyrical departure by Led Bib’s standards, written in waltz time and with Holub deploying brushes, for perhaps the only time on the album, on the intro. It’s not all sweetness and light, the piece picks up an energy and bite as it progresses, but there’s still a sense that the piece is a celebration of Led Bib itself and of everything the band has achieved in the last dozen years. Let’s hope that its valedictory air doesn’t really signal the end.

“Umbrella Weather” seems to have emerged to considerable critical acclaim with several commentators hailing it was the band’s best work to date. It’s an opinion with which I’m more than happy to concur, Led Bib may have established a strong group identity early on but it’s one that they have consistently sought to modify throughout their career and this album is no exception, even at this stage of their collective existence they continue to make artistic progress. Led Bib have achieved a remarkable consistency, but there’s no question about it, “Umbrella Weather” is right up there with their best work.

It will be a shame if this really is the last ever Led Bib album but in the meantime we have the exciting prospect of seeing the material from “Umbrella Weather” being performed live on the group’s forthcoming tour. Let’s skronk again, dates as below; 

15 February 2017 Dempsey’s Cardiff, UK

16 February 2017 Hot House, Morecambe, UK

17 February 2017 Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, UK

18 February 2017 ALBUM LAUNCH @ Kings Place, London, UK

20 February 2017 The Bell Inn, Bath, UK

21 February 2017 The Canteen, Bristol, UK

22 February 2017 Broomhill Art Hotel, Barnstaple, UK

23 February 2017 Hidden Rooms, Cambridge, UK

9 March 2017 Schokoladen, Berlin, DE(with Gorilla Mask)

10 March 2017 Jazzclub Tonne, Dresden, DE

12 March 2017 MS Stubnitz, Hamburg, DE

13 March 2017 Porgy and Bess, Vienna, AT (with Gorilla Mask)

13 April 2017 Jazz Spot Candy Chiba, JP

14 April 2017 Velvet Sun Tokyo, JP with Satoko Fujii

15 April 2017 Manda-La 2 Tokyo, Japan

16 April 2017 Nanya Nagoya, JP with Ryoko Ono

17 April 2017 Big Apple Kobe, JP with Satoko Fujii

18 April 2017 Pepperland Okayama, JP

19 April 2017 Jazz Riverside Fukuoka, JP

3 May 2017 Vortex Jazz Club, London UK

4 May 2017 Vortex Jazz Club, London, UK

5 May 2017 Blue Orange Theatre, Birmingham, UK

6 May 2017 Fuse Art Space, Bradford, UK

7 May 2017 The Bridge Hotel, Newcastle, UK

8 May 2017 Bramley’s Bar, Canterbury, UK

12 May 2017 Jazztage Goerlitz, Goerlitz, DE


More information at http://www.ledbib.com

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