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Led Bib

Drummer and composer Mark Holub formed Led Bib in 2003 for a university masters project. Made up of his Middlesex university friends, the five piece played its first gig at London’s Klinker Club on February 24th 2004 to ten people in the backroom of a North London pub. Five years later they were performing on primetime TV to millions, having been nominated as a Mercury Prize album of the year. Theirs was a full gas acceleration to that point. Having had their first album met with widespread critical praise in May 2005, they also won the Peter Whittingham Jazz Award in the same year. A second album, Sizewell Tea released in 2007 through iconic London label Babel brought more interest, bigger features, better reviews. There was a notable shift in numbers too, audiences grew as fans cottoned on to a new jazz movement, of which Led Bib was a frontrunner, ditching the noodling and pulling more into rock territory. As they drew references from across the musical spectrum Beefheart and Zorn, Pink Floyd and Miles Davis so too did they draw in a larger swathe of interest, drum and bass heads, jazz aficionados, death metalists and folk, world music and pop fans were, in equal number, their audience.

A limited edition live release appeared in 2008, but it was the release of their 4th album Sensible Shoes that saw them experience widespread acclaim following the announcement that they were chosen as an Album of the Year in the 2009 Barclaycard Mercury Prize. The ensuing media storm saw them reach in excess of 20 million people as they performed on TV & Radio sessions including Channel 4 TV News with Jon Snow, playing live on BBC 2 and found a befuddled and unlikely pundit in Holub being asked to explain the likes of “what is jazz?” to the masses of early morning BBC breakfast radio listeners .

In 2011 the group released Bring Your Own, their second album for US based Cuneiform Records. Quickly hailed as a stand out success it gained 4 and 5 star reviews across the board. 2014 saw the release of two new albums to celebrate their 10th anniversary, the studio album 'The People in Your Neighbourhood' and the limited edition live vinyl 'The Good Egg', both hailed as modern classics and there best yet. 2017 sees the band release their eagerly anticipated 6th studio album and first with genre defying London label Rare Noise Records, a tour of Europe and the UK will be done in support.

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Album Review

Led Bib: It's Morning

Read "It's Morning" reviewed by Claudio Bonomi


Tutta un'altra musica in casa Led Bib con i nuovi ingressi alla voci di Sharron Fortman, co-fondatrice della North Sea Radio Orchestra (ensemble che recentemente ha dato alle stampe Folly Bololey dove propone in compagnia di John Greaves e Annie Barbazza un'affascinante rilettura di Rock Bottom di Robert Wyatt), e di Jack Hues, conosciuto ai più per le gesta dei suoi Wang Chung negli anni Ottanta, ma anche fondatore, insieme al pianista Sam Bailey, dei sottovalutati e illuminati The Quartet ...

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Album Review

Led Bib: Umbrella Weather

Read "Umbrella Weather" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


When you're talking umbrella weather, there's rain and then there's rain. A drizzle and a downpour are two very different beasts, and this most certainly qualifies as the latter. Led Bib opens up the heavenly and hellish skies to create a deluge in sound on this terrifically tempestuous RareNoise date. Some bands born of radical designs tend to lose their edge over time, blunted and stunted by the individual and collective aging process, but Led Bib hasn't ...

Album Review

Led Bib: The People in Your Neighbourhood

Read "The People in Your Neighbourhood" reviewed by Claudio Bonomi


I Led Bib si confermano con questo album, il settimo della loro carriera iniziata nel 2003, compreso il live The Good Egg uscito sempre nel 2014 solo su vinile, come una delle formazioni più vispe della giovane e sempre più agitata scena jazz britannica insieme a gruppi come i Polar Bear, i Get The Blessing e gli ACV dell'ottimo Andy Champion. Capitanati dal batterista Mark Holub riescono a inanellare 11 composizioni originali dense di idee incendiarie come sono ...

9
Album Review

Led Bib: The People In Your Neighbourhood

Read "The People In Your Neighbourhood" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


The People In Your Neighbourhood comes from Led Bib, “rock-jazzers" with a neat line in catchy grooves and prog-rock-meets-free-jazz. The London-based outfit, led by New Jersey ex-pat drummer Mark Holub, has been around for over a decade, gaining a Mercury Prize nomination for Sensible Shoes (Cuneiform Records, 2009). After a quiet couple of years since the release of Bring Your Own (Cuneiform Records, 2011), early 2014 sees a flurry of activity, with the simultaneous release on Cuneiform of The People ...

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Interview

Led Bib: It's Not Lady Gaga

Read "Led Bib: It's Not Lady Gaga" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


Led Bib: a short, sharp shock of a name for one of the hardest-hitting bands on the UK jazz scene. But the name doesn't tell the whole story, for this is also a band that's capable of inventive and intensely emotive music as well as the riff-laden numbers that have helped it to earn the label of “Punk Jazz," among others. In the runup to the release of the band's fifth album, Bring Your Own (Cuneiform, 2011), the band's amiable ...

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Album Review

Led Bib: Bring Your Own

Read "Bring Your Own" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


Led Bib has never been an easy ensemble to pigeonhole: according to critics and reviewers the band is “punk jazz," free improvisation, avant-garde, skronk, dirty jazz--and, most splendidly, “death-jazz-cum-math-punk." On the evidence of the London-based band's fourth album, Bring Your Own, it's all of the above, and a little bit more. This is music for dancing, for head-banging, for thinking and even for quiet reflection. Led Bib's founder and main writer is New Jersey native Mark Holub, ...

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Album Review

Led Bib: Bring Your Own

Read "Bring Your Own" reviewed by Chris May


Writing about Led Bib's Mercury Prize-nominated album, the raucous and confrontational Sensible Shoes (Cuneiform, 2009), Britain's Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun newspaper--which speaks with as much authority about jazz as Murdoch's Fox News speaks about politics--declared: “Led Bib are the band bringing jazz back to contemporary music's cutting edge." A slightly more measured response came from the Guardian's jazz critic, who described the album as “a gale of fresh air." All About Jazz observed that “the band continues its mission ...

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3

Recording

Genre defying UK ensemble Led Bib to release 'It's Morning' on RareNoise Records - due out September 27, 2019

Genre defying UK ensemble Led Bib to release 'It's Morning' on RareNoise Records - due out September 27, 2019

Source: hubtone PR

From the Homeric invocation of ethereal opener “Atom Story,” it becomes stunningly clear that It's Morning, the latest album from the uncategorizable UK ensemble Led Bib, is meant to take the listener on a journey. The wide-ranging and evocative set is also a testament to the distance the band has travelled on its own evolutionary path. If not the endpoint, it at least sits at a far-flung guidepost along a transformative odyssey undertaken by the eclectic ensemble. Led Bib has ...

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Crowdfunding Campaign

Jazz Rockers Led Bib Launch Kickstarter For Their 10th Anniversary To Make A New CD And Live Vinyl

Jazz Rockers Led Bib Launch Kickstarter For Their 10th Anniversary To Make A New CD And Live Vinyl

Source: Mark Holub

Jazz/Rock/Experimental band Led Bib have launched a Kickstarter campaign to support their 10 year anniversary celebration which include a new CD release and a limited edition live LP to be released on Cuneiform Records in May 2014. And here are the full details of the Kickstarter campaign. So....we have actually survived ten years together....hard to believe it's been so long! So....we want to celebrate, and we want to do that by making 2014 a really special year for Led Bib. ...

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Recording

Led Bib - Bring Your Own (Cuneiform, 2011)

Led Bib - Bring Your Own (Cuneiform, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

Led Bib is an exciting London based quintet made up of Mark Holub on drums, Pete Grogan on alto saxophone, Chris Williams on alto saxophone, Liran Donin on bass and Toby McLaren on keyboards. They play an agile brand of music that is a mixture of jazz, fusion and progressive rock that is never pretentious, but fun and exciting to listen to. This band's forward looking mix of jazz and rock 'n' roll makes it unsurprising that they were nominated ...

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Award / Grant

Led Bib Shortlisted for the 2009 Barclaycard Mercury Prize

Led Bib Shortlisted for the 2009 Barclaycard Mercury Prize

Source: Michael Ricci

Young British jazz band Led Bib were today announced as an 'Album of the Year' in the 2009 Barclaycard Mercury Prize. Led Bib are creators of a new euphoric jazz-rock sound that’s as brutal as it is seductive. They caught the ear of the Mercury judges with their latest album and third studio recording 'Sensible Shoes', which was released through Cuneiform Records on May 4th 2009. The group’s bandleader and drummer Mark Holub gave this statement: “It’s all still sinking ...

Rarely have two saxes, keyboards, bass and drums sounded so dangerous yet so compelling.”

— The Guardian

a lean, mean, improv-rocking jazz machine”

— Time Out

Every number is cleverly honed to leave you wanting just that bit more.”

— The Telegraph

“Led Bib are among very few artists who seem less interested in following anyone else’s traditions than starting their own!”

— Yahoo Music

“Like the late Captain Beefheart, Led Bib know a thing or two about ugly beauty.”

— The Times

“one of the most edgy and exciting units to emerge on the UK music scene in recent years.”

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

It's Morning

RareNoiseRecords
2019

buy

Umbrella Weather

RareNoiseRecords
2017

buy

The Good Egg

Cuneiform Records
2014

buy

The People In Your...

Cuneiform Records
2014

buy

Sizewell Tea

Babel Label
2011

buy

Bring Your Own

Cuneiform Records
2010

buy

Is That a Woodblock?

From: Bring Your Own
By Led Bib

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