Friendly Records to present night of punk jazz at central Bristol venue

Friendly Records to present night of punk jazz at central Bristol venue

Posted on: 23 Jan 2023

The beloved musical hub is taking over Strange Brew on Valentine’s Day for a candlelit, seated show from progressive jazz outfit Let Spin.

 

Let Spin and Phenomenal Kissing play Strange Brew on Tuesday 14 February.

 

Bristol crowds already familiar with key groups such as Get The Blessing and Run Logan Run will welcome the visit of post-jazz quartet Let Spin in celebration of their tenth anniversary and the release of their brilliant new album, Thick as Thieves.

 

Tickets for the show can be found HERE.

 

 

Let Spin are an egalitarian quartet spread across Berlin and London. Since their formation in 2012, the group have become a celebrated component of the UK and Europe’s burgeoning jazz scene.

 

Individually, the band’s members have contributed to renowned projects such as Melt Yourself Down, Sarathy Korwar, Spike Orchestra, Beats & Pieces Big Band and Mercury Prize-nominated, Led Bib. Their enveloping sound carries the distinct contemporary jazz identity of the fertile meetings of the ever-evolving London jazz scene. 

 

Let Spin paint a multicultural urban experience - a collision of traditions, lived experience and applied practice - crosses borders and finds expression in searching & propulsive, soaring, angular jazz of the built environment.

 

Compositions collapse into each other, dissolving melodic lines in a tapestry of feeling, crashing drums and whirling saxophone. Atmospheric guitar lines constantly shift, drawing in post-rock elements that imbue the music's unsettling tension. 

This is a contemporary jazz sound that brings in elements of post-punk, bass-led rhythms, German jazz label ECM and Slint-Esque overdriven to clean guitar surges and their latest album, Thick as Thieves, is no different, with its understated intensity that is sure to shift into direct, explosive focus in a live environment. 

 

Opening the evening will be the debut performance of Phenomenal Kissing, a new free improv, pop and performance art project of Dan Johnson & Celeste Cantor-Stephens. 

 

One of the great drummers, Johnson is an endless source of radical influence in Bristol’s progressive music community with involvement in the likes of Run Logan Run, the EP/64 project, an improv duo with flautist Tina Hitchens and countless other projects past and present.

 

Celeste Cantor Stephens is an exciting collaborator bringing a classical charge to free improv and experimental music making. Her current projects include chamber folk duo Cirenne, Bubbe's Cupboard, an improvised live scoring project and the improv trio, Baldhu.

Taking over Strange Brew on Valentine’s Day (Tuesday 14 February), this seated, candlelit event is not to be missed. Tickets for the show can be found HERE.

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Article by:

Stanley Gray

Stan is a born and bred Bristolian, recently graduated from studying English Literature in Sheffield. His passions are music and literature and he spends the majority of his time in venues all over the city, immersing himself in Bristol’s alternative music scene. A lifelong Bristol City fan, Stan’s Saturdays are spent watching his team both home and away.