Winner of the Parliamentary Jazz Award for Best Media, 2019

Review

Sloth Racket

Organising Space


by Ian Mann

October 10, 2022

/ ALBUM

I love the balance between the improvised and the written in Sloth Racket’s music and also the sheer energy that they bring to their performances. They remain a highly exciting and convincing outfit.

Sloth Racket

“Organising Space”

(Luminous Label LU017)

Cath Roberts – baritone saxophone, Sam Andreae – alto saxophone, Anton Hunter – guitar. Seth Bennett – double bass, Johnny Hunter – drums


2022 is proving to be a highly productive year for saxophonist, composer and improviser Cath Roberts. The Jazzmann recently gave a highly favourable review to “Carapace”, the most recent album from the duo Ripsaw Catfish, comprised of Roberts and Sloth Racket guitarist Anton Hunter. Review here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/ripsaw-catfish-carapace

The year has also seen the release of the eponymous début album by the quartet Spinningwork, a new project featuring the talents of Roberts, Tom Ward (alto sax), Olie Brice (double bass) and Johnny Hunter (drums). I have already heard this outstanding album and intend to take a fuller look at it shortly.

Turning now to this new release by Sloth Racket, the quintet that has served as one of Robert’s main creative outlets over the course of the last seven years. “Organising Space” represents the band’s fifth studio album following “Triptych” (2016), “Shapeshifters” (2017), “A Glorious Monster” (2018) and “Dismantle Yourself” (2019). All of these recordings have been favourably reviewed elsewhere on The Jazzmann. The Sloth Racket catalogue also includes the live recordings “See The Looks On The Faces” (2017) and “Exabout; Live In Ramsgate” (2020).  Both are available in digital format via the Sloth Racket Bandcamp page https://slothracket.bandcamp.com/
This also features recordings by Favourite Animals, an extended ten piece version of Sloth Racket that was originally convened for the 2016 Lancaster Jazz Festival.

A highly active presence on the London jazz and improvised music scene Roberts’ other projects have included the septet Quadraceratops and the quartet Word of Moth plus the  Anglo-German sextet Moonmot.  Elsewhere she has performed with the Madwort Saxophone Quartet, led by saxophonist Tom Ward, and with  the eight piece improvising saxophone ensemble Saxoctopus.  She has been part of Anton Hunter’s large ensemble Article XI and of guitarist Paulo Dias Duarte’s Overground Collective.

Roberts enjoys regular duo collaborations with fellow saxophonists Sam Andreae and Dee Byrne, bassist Olie Brice and trombonist Tullis Rennie. She and Rennie also perform with Manchester based bassist Otto Willberg as cr-ow-tr-io. 

Roberts has also recorded with guitarist/clarinettist Alex Ward, vibraphonist Corey Mwamba, guitarist Craig Scott, trumpeter / sound artist Alex Bonney and with the Belgian musician and composer Dirk Serries.

As a committed improviser she has also been involved in numerous other one off and ad hoc collaborations.

Roberts and Byrne  are the co-founders of Lume, a musician led organisation originally devoted to giving improvising musicians a platform on the London music scene. It has since expanded to incorporate the Luminous record label and has facilitated two successful Lume Festivals in 2016 and 2017.

With fellow saxophonists Tom Ward and Colin Webster she also helps to facilitate  ‘Bråk’, an improvised music residency that takes place on a regular basis at waterintobeer,  a beer / homebrew shop and bar in Brockley,  South East London.

Originally formed for a Gateshead Jazz Festival commission in 2015 Sloth Racket has retained the same line up throughout its career. Over the course of its numerous recordings and live performances it has productively mined the territory where written and fully improvised music meets, with Roberts often deploying graphic scores rather than formal compositions.  Essentially these represent ideas or basic frameworks around which the band can structure their improvisations.

The music to be heard on “Organising Space” features material composed by Roberts between late 2020 and early 2022 and it was recorded in April 2022 at Lightship 95, a floating studio based on a former lightship in East London. The music was recorded by Giles Barrett and subsequently mixed and mastered by Alex Bonney. The album artwork is by Roberts herself and the sleeves for the CD edition were risograph printed by the Footprint Workers Co-op in Leeds.

Slip the CD into the player and the indicator will suggest that the album consists of nine tracks. This is slightly misleading, in truth there are four major pieces of music interspersed by five snippets of studio chatter which Roberts describes as “salvaged audio off-cuts from the studio session”. In reality these are so brief that they are not actually awarded titles with just an asterisk * punctuating the four compositions. Collectively the five ‘asterisks’ last a mere forty six seconds so this review will focus on the four main instrumental performances.

Roberts describes the four main compositions as being “structural skeletons of the music fleshed out by the band through collective improvisation in the moment”. Shortly before the recording session the band had played three live dates in the UK and Roberts speaks of the “fresh, exciting energy” that was the result of the band being re-united after a long break, a quality that Sloth Racket then carried with them into the studio.

“Not This Time” commences with a twin horn riff, swiftly joined by vigorously plucked double bass, savage guitar chording and pummelling drums. The music is spiky and angular and Anton Hunter emerges as the first soloist, propelled by Bennett’s bass and brother Johnny’s drums, with the horns also adding to the momentum. The riff based intro mutates into a more loosely structured free jazz squall with the saxes particularly garrulous as the rhythm section roils behind them and Anton Hunter continues to add layers of guitar overdrive. That “fresh, exciting energy” of which Roberts speaks is very much in evidence and the quintet sound emphatically ‘up for it’ and positively bristling with intent. Sam Andreae eventually emerges as a soloist but there’s no letting up in terms of intensity, with Anton’s guitar again coming to the fore before the piece finally winds down.

Double bass and effects laden guitar introduce the appropriately titled “Thorny”, the introductory dialogue later supplemented by the clatter of Johnny Hunter’s drums and percussion. Roberts then adds gruff baritone sax as a collective discussion begins to evolve, the saxes squabbling among themselves within a framework of scratchy, spiky guitar and vigorous bass and drums. Eventually a gargantuan written riff emerges, something of a Sloth Racket trademark, as the five musicians coalesce to maximum effect, laying down a mighty groove. But Sloth Racket’s music rarely stays in one place for long (the title of the “Shapeshifters” album being particularly apposite) and eventually the riff fragments to allow for further, much more loosely structured free jazz passages with Roberts (I think) generating some remarkable vocalised sounds through her saxophone. The introduction of clangorous guitar leads to a further monstrous riff based passage as the worlds of written and improvised music collide in a glorious sonic pile up, before finally quietly subsiding.

“Do It Tomorrow” begins quietly, with a dialogue between breathy baritone sax and Johnny Hunter’s cymbals, with Andreae’s alto subsequently taking over from Roberts. Guitar and bass also enter quietly as Sloth Racket demonstrate that they can be atmospheric and contemplative as well as visceral. But there’s always an agreeable ‘edge’ to this quintet’s music and gradually the sound subtly begins to darken as the piece progresses with Andreae and Roberts exchanging melodic phrases above Anton Hunter’s shimmering guitar and a subtly shifting rhythmic backdrop. It’s a piece that sounds more obviously ‘written’ than its companions although it does become more freely structured as it progresses, ending as it began with a brief baritone /drums dialogue.

The title track begins with an extended solo drum passage from Johnny Hunter eventually joined by the grainy sound of Bennett’s bowed bass, the pair entering into a dark hued but engaging dialogue. The conversation is subsequently joined by Anton Hunter’s guitar and finally Roberts’ garrulous but fluent baritone sax as Bennett and Hunter establish a propulsive polyrhythmic free jazz groove. A sudden about turn leads to a heated exchange between the belligerent squalls of Andreae’s alto and Anton Hunter’s retaliatory guitar chording, this allied to an arsenal of electronic effects, their sonic duelling eventually congealing into a typically mighty Sloth Racket riff with all the band members returning to the fray. It’s a thrillingly visceral way to end an album, but the recording actually concludes with the final ‘asterisk’ track, at twenty three seconds the longest of these and long enough to contain a brief snippet of actual music, perhaps acting as a ‘teaser’ for a subsequent release.

Reviewing this album for The Wire (albeit very briefly) Andy Hamilton described “Organising Space” as being “a superbly conceived and executed release” and it’s hard to disagree with him. It’s an album that sees Sloth Racket continuing to refine their approach with the free jazz moments balanced by some awesome riffery of the type that King Crimson would be proud of. I love the balance between the improvised and the written in Sloth Racket’s music and also the sheer energy that they bring to their performances, in this case a pent up urgency following the two year Covid lay off. It’s powerful, uncompromising stuff and won’t suit everybody’s ears but fans of the distinctive Sloth Racket sound will find much to enjoy here. They remain a highly exciting and convincing outfit.

Some commentators have suggested that the title “Organising Space” refers to the act of music making itself, which may well be the case. I’d add that the function of a recording studio is to act as AN ‘organising space’, hence perhaps those brief passages of studio chatter, micro glimpses into Sloth Racket’s working processes in that environment.

Speculation aside the band will be launching the album with three UK live appearances, beginning tonight, 10th October 2022,  with an official album launch date at London’s Café Oto.

Other dates are;

11 October - BRIGHTON: Safehouse @ The Rose Hill

15 October - GLASGOW: Pop Mutations Festival

Catch them if you can.