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Cath Roberts

Cath Roberts’ work explores free improvisation, composition and the music at their meeting point. Her primary outlet as a composer and improviser on baritone saxophone is the quintet Sloth Racket, which has toured widely and released several albums. She leads ten piece improvising ensemble Favourite Animals, and has a long-standing duo with guitarist Anton Hunter, Ripsaw Catfish. As bandmate, Cath is a member of Madwort Sax Quartet, Vole, Article XI and Alex Ward’s Item 10 amongst other groups. She co-runs LUME with Dee Byrne, producing concerts, tours and festivals since 2013 and releasing music on an offshoot label, Luminous. Cath is also part of the group of musicians who run BRÅK, an improvised music series taking place in Brockley, South East London. (2018)

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4
Album Review

Cath Roberts & Olie Brice: Conduit

Read "Conduit" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Do not let the length fool you. Clocking in at just under thirty minutes Conduits by the UK duo of Cath Roberts and Olie Brice is a full meal. During the Covid lockdown, the two musicians recorded the music in two separate locations, but also in real time. Utilizing special software called JackTrip, which eliminates the dreaded internet delay, the pair was able to fashion this seamless recording session. Maybe the separate locales necessitated closer listening by the musicians. Here, ...

4
Album Review

Cath Roberts & Olie Brice: Conduits

Read "Conduits" reviewed by John Sharpe


In some ways one could liken Conduits to a telephone call between two friends, given that it was recorded simultaneously over the internet at the homes of baritone saxophonist Cath Roberts and bassist Olie Brice who live some 60 miles apart in England. But, while the vibe is conversational, this being an instrumental exchange, it is as if both talk at once, pursue different subjects, and even go off at complete tangents. And it is all the better that they ...

7
Album Review

MoonMot: Going Down The Well

Read "Going Down The Well" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


Six musicians from the UK and Switzerland, with a strong background in improvisation and a talent for mixing acoustic and electronic instrumentation, creating tunes which move from the gentle, Rhodes-led, intro to “35 Years" and the bass-sax interplay which opens “Threnody Of The English Polity" to the raucous baritone sax of the title track—that is MoonMot on Going Down The Well. The sextet formed in 2017 when saxophonists Dee Byrne (Entropi, Deemer) and Cath Roberts (Sloth Racket, Favourite ...

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‘Lurching between riff and abstraction… maintains an elegant balance between emergent melody and the wilder activity at its fringes’ – The Wire

‘Startling moments of altered perspective’ – Bandcamp Daily

‘Consider this an important contribution to the debate about spontaneity versus form.’ – Jazzwise

‘An agreeably spicy goulash of free improvisation, grumpy riffs and bluesy themes.’ – The Quietus

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Conduits

Relative Pitch Records
2022

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Conduit

Relative Pitch Records
2022

buy

Going Down The Well

Unit Records
2020

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