Firehouse Tapes

Firehouse Tapes is a new duo release with Andrew Lisle on drums. The album was recorded directly to cassette, during three improvised sessions in the basement of an old fire station in North London.

Firehouse Tapes is available as a limited edition cassette and download from Raw Tonk Records.

Line-up: Colin Webster - Tenor and Baritone Saxophone, Andrew Lisle - Drums.

Birchall / Cheetham / Webster / Willberg - Winter Tour

David Birchall - Guitar

Andrew Cheetham - Drums

Colin Webster - Saxophones

Otto Willberg - Double Bass

CINEPALACE

New release on the New Wave of Jazz label - CINEPALACE. Named after the venue in Kortrijk, Belgium, where this set was recorded, the album captures the first meeting of this trio with Dirk Serries on guitar and Martina Verhoeven on double bass.

The album is available as a limited edition LP on heavyweight vinyl from here.



Line-up: Dirk Serries - Guitar, Martina Verhoeven - Double Bass, Colin Webster - Tenor Saxophone.

"Think of it as abstract sound painting writ large, with the participants sensitive to the creative entity forming via their pointillist interactions." - Textura

Recent Press

DunningWebsterUnderwood - Bleed
"..a slow, steady exploitation of applied pressure, an improvisation structured on deep breath-blooms like monolithic, dry ice-shrouded Sunn O))) riffs, stretched and slowed." Tim Owen, Dalston Sound

Birchall/Cheetham/Webster/Willberg - Night Streets Of Madness

"Even in the realm of free improvisation, music rarely sounded this brutally physical. Each of these four virtuoso instrumentalists is given the space to produce some of their best individual improvisations and solos to date, but Night Streets Of Madness works best when they play as one single instinctive entity, somehow twisting punishing impulsiveness into densely textured long form (spontaneous) compositions." Tristan Bath, The Quietus

Reviews of 'Bleed', 'Night Streets Of Madness', and Dikeman/Serries/Lisle/Webster - Live at Cafe Oto 

"Webster.. has an instinctive gift for hooking up with sound-makers of all stripes, his questing drive to produce far-out sounds balanced only by the generosity and egalitarianism of his own musical practices. You could say that he plays ‘in the pocket’ – a strange term to use for a horn player, yet it reflects Webster’s ability to lock into a groups’ dynamic, neither dominating it with his contributions nor becoming submerged." Paul Margree, We Need No Swords.

All albums available from http://colinwebster.bandcamp.com

Photo credit: Dawid Laskowski

Live at Cafe Oto

New release on Raw Tonk Records, 'Live at Cafe Oto' captures the first meeting of this quartet featuring Dirk Serries on guitar, John Dikeman on tenor sax, Andrew Lisle on drums, and myself on baritone sax.

This blistering live set is available on limited edition CDR and download from here.

Night Streets Of Madness

New release on the excellent Manchester based Tombed Visions label. 'Night Streets Of Madness' is the debut album by Birchall / Cheetham / Webster / Willberg quartet.

Recorded at the legendary Islington Mill in Salford, Night Streets Of Madness is available on limited edition cassette and download.

Line-up: David Birchall (guitar), Andrew Cheetham (drums), Colin Webster (tenor and baritone saxophones), Otto Willberg (double bass).

DunningWebsterUnderwood - Bleed

DunningWebsterUnderwood is a new project adding 'drone-doom' tubaist Sam Underwood to my long-running saxophone and turntable duo with Graham Dunning. Our debut album 'Bleed' was recorded last year in an improvised session at Sam's studio in Worcestershire.

"..a slow, steady exploitation of applied pressure, an improvisation structured on deep breath-blooms like monolithic, dry ice-shrouded Sunn O))) riffs, stretched and slowed." - Tim Owen (Dalston Sound)

The album is available on CD and download from Adaadat Records.

Line-up: Graham Dunning - turntable & effects, Colin Webster - baritone saxophone, Sam Underwood - tuba

Dead Neanderthals Endless Voids Album

Recorded live at last year's Incubate Festival in The Netherlands with an expanded Dead Neanderthals line-up, the full Endless Voids concert is now available here on double LP or double CD.

The full line-up for this performance was:

René Aquarius (Dead Neanderthals) - drums, percussion

Otto Kokke (Dead Neanderthals) - saxophone
Thomas Ekelund (Trepaneringsritualen) - voice, electronics
Peter Johan Nÿland (Distel) - string percussion
Dirk Serries (Vidna Obmana) - guitar
Steven Vinkenoog (Donne et Desiree) - guitar
Colin Webster - saxophone, clarinet
Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek) - electronics

Dead Neanderthals UK Tour 2015

DEAD NEANDERTHALS / ORTHODOX UK TOUR

2nd Sept - Power Lunches, London

https://babayaga.ticketabc.com/events/baba-yagas-hut-pr-64/

3rd Sept - Hare and Hounds, Birmingham

http://hareandhoundskingsheath.co.uk

4th Sept - Islington Mill, Manchester

http://www.islingtonmill.com

5th Sept - The Exchange, Bristol

http://www.exchangebristol.com

6th Sept - The Cowley Club, Brighton

http://www.cowleyclub.org.uk

Saxoctopus

Formed by chance when eight saxophonists found themselves in a room together, Saxoctopus - as the name suggests - is an all-saxophone improvising octet featuring some key figures from the UK improv scene. The Saxoctopus album was recorded live at The Vortex Jazz Club in London, and has been released on CD and download by Raw Tonk Records:

The Saxoctopus line-up is: Dee Byrne (Alto Sax), Oliver Dover (Alto Sax), Julie Kjær (Alto Sax), Sam Andreae (Tenor Sax), Rachel Musson (Tenor Sax), Tom Ward (Tenor Sax), Cath Roberts (Baritone Sax), Colin Webster (Baritone Sax).

Interview with Something Else!

I was recently interviewed by Sammy Stein for the Something Else! website. Read the full interview here:
http://somethingelsereviews.com/2015/05/05/colin-webster-interview-2015/

(photo - Steve Cropper)

Birchall / Cheetham / Webster / Willberg

Audio / photo-collage from a recent gig by an exciting new quartet formation with Manchester-based players: David Birchall (guitar), Andrew Cheetham (drums), and Otto Willberg (double bass).

Thanks to Hundred Years Gallery for the photos and Graham Dunning for the recording.

The debut album by this quartet will be released later in the year by the excellent Tombed Visions record label.

White Noise Session

Short solo set filmed at the White Noise Studio in Winterswijk, NL. Huge thanks to Marlon Wolterink for recording it.

http://www.whitenoisestudio.com

Live at Hundred Years Gallery

'Live at Hundred Years Gallery' is the new album by my saxophone/turntable duo with Graham Dunning. Released by the excellent CRAM record label, the album contains our full set performed at the East London gallery in October last year.

The album is currently available as limited edition CDR and download:

Webster / Holub Duo Mini-Tour

My duo with Mark Holub is playing a series of UK dates in April:

April 13th - The Cowley Club, Brighton

http://clubzygotic.wordpress.com

April 14th - The Lamp Tavern, Birmingham

http://improvisationuk.wix.com/fizzlebirmingham

April 15th - The Vortex, London

http://www.vortexjazz.co.uk/event/double-duo-plus-mark-holubcolin-webster-mark-holubirene-kepl/

All three dates will be double-bills with Mark's duo with Austrian violinist Irene Kepl.

it's on like boiled corn

'it's on like boiled corn' is my new solo album released on Norwegianism Records. The album is a series of short improvisations and explores similar territory to my previous solo album 'Antennae', using a strict palette of minimal saxophone sounds, with an emphasis on breath and mechanical noises over "pure/natural" notes.

The album is currently available only as a limited edition CD (50 copies), and a download option will be available soon.

Buy / stream here:

Sneeuwstorm - Rutger Zuydervelt

'Sneeuwstorm' is a new album by electronic/ambient composer Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek). The album comprises of one track which was made incorporating improvised saxophone sounds recorded especially for this project by Otto Kokke and myself.

Rutger writes: "I started with Sneeuwstorm by making an electronic 'framework' for the saxophones, mainly using recordings from electrical equipment, made with coil pick-ups. Then I asked two of my favorite saxophonists, Colin Webster and Otto Kokke, to improvise on the material.
Once I received Colin and Otto's contributions, things began to fall into place rapidly. As expected, they came up with something splendid. It inspired me again to morph the whole composition into something new, restructuring, processing and looping parts of Colin's and Otto's recordings, and adding more sounds of my own, such as field recordings, samples and electric guitar."

'Sneeuwstorm' is available on CD and download from Glistening Examples.

Viscera Press

Viscera - my duo album with Mark Holub has received some excellent press since it was released by New Atlantis Records in October last year:

"To be able to say you have heard something unique is rare these days. Of course, every musician's recordings are unique but occasionally there arrives an album which is truly 'stand alone' and Viscera (New Atlantic),the third album by saxophonistColin Webster and drummer Mark Holub is one such album."  - Sammy Stein, All About Jazz (full review)

"..see this as a latterday Interstellar Space."  - Stephen Graham, Marlbank (full review)

"..a gutsy, complex record, full of vibrancy and raw lyricism." - Paul Margree, We Need No Swords (full review)

"Webster and Holub have created an album that’s as gutsy as its title, and steadily fascinating throughout its run."  - Justin Cober-Lake, Dusted (full review) 

Full review in the November issue of Jazzwise Magazine by Dan Spicer.

Full review by Something Else!

Full review by Enola (Belgium)

Full review by Tomajazz (Spain)

Full review by Music Tales (France)

Short review by Free Form Free Jazz (Brazil)

Viscera is available on CD and download:

Dead Neanderthals Spain/Portugal Tour

PRIME Interview And Recent Press

Dead Neanderthals were recently interviewed by ATTN Magazine about our most recent album - PRIME. Read the interview here.

The album has received some excellent reviews and end-of-year plaudits, including top 20 best jazz albums of 2014 according to The Quietus, and Free Form Free Jazz blog's top 10 of the year.

Some of the excellent reviews include:

"Fusing the textural and tonal freedom of jazz and noise with the linear attack of metal, Prime is an absolute blast." Stewart Smith - The Quietus (full review)

"..a wake-up call to anyone who thought free jazz was a dying art." - Sammy Stein - Something Else (full review)

"Prime is never boring. It will rain down on you. It will intoxicate you. It will traumatise you, pummel you, devastate you, destroy you. Once heard, it will never be forgotten, and heavy music will never seem the same." - Lach Walter - Cyclic Defrost (full review)

Julian Eidenberger - Free Jazz Blog (full review)

MacDara Conroy - Thumped (full review)

Paul Margree - Louder Than War (full review)

Finally, one of the most incredible reviews I have ever read from Massimo Ricci for Touching Extremes.

PRIME is available on LP and download: