Discography

Sizewell Tea CD available online here
Led Bib Live mini CD (coming in March 2008 - Ltd ed.of 1000)


Listen to Led Bib


“…If you don't go near jazz because it just isn't damned noisy enough, then come back to life to try the deliciously uncivil new Led Bib album... Led Bib are jazz, though, through and through, crammed with horn and blast, and as much swing as sweat...” ( Paul Morley, Observer Music Monthly)

"Sun Ra didn't die in vain." John Bungey (The Times)

Led Bib is led by young New Jersey born drummer/composer Mark Holub. Absorbing the sounds of the downtown New York music scene as a developing musician Holub came to London in 2003 where he picked out some of the finest youthful players to suit his ambitious vision.  A combination of wild spontaneity, arresting composition, soaring improvisation and moments of yearning lyricism, Led Bib is a whirlwind of sound blasts, grooves and raw jazz, already causing a stir on the London music scene.  The trademark stabs of the toms, the oscine flow and the blast of the intertwining saxes, the Rhodes glowing and growing, the bass ever persistent – it all joins up into an intense live show of rawness, wit and charisma. Driving melodies roar at full throttle astounding and mesmerising audiences from Newcastle to the Netherlands. “The most credible thing going in UK jazz” said Time Out and “we need bands like Led Bib to make the world safe for dangerous music” cried the Observer Music Monthly last year.  Winners of the Peter Whittingham Jazz Award 2005, these young players have the integrity, energy and skill to blow the cobwebs off any cynic. Their debut album was titled Arboretum.

So to 2008 and the twenty-something quintet will release Led Bib Live, their third album - a limited edition (just 1000 in circulation) and individually numbered mini album. Recorded at Pizza Express Soho last August it documents the band's emerging new sound. Earlier tracks from their first few albums ‘Arboretum' and ‘Sizewell Tea' have been revisited, developed and swung into new dynamic territory. This is a band that has grown together and individually - Liran Donin on bass, Toby McLaren on keys (and the strange noises that emanate from that little box), Chris and Pete on alto saxes, and of course, the inimitable manically grinning bandleader Mark Holub careering off into the the next improbable improvisation, on drums.

What they say about Led Bib:

"Nothing stayed put for long, but the effect was the opposite of tiresome. A young audience, Led Bib's constituency, let them know that in a big way." (John Fordham - The Guardian **** live review at the Vortex)

“an electrified 21st century Fire Music.” - Jazzwise

"It's this non conformist attitude that makes Led Bib a sonic adventure to savour" Robert Shore Metro

"Imagine a super-group featuring Zorn, Berne, Donny Hathaway, Sid Vicious and Robert Wyatt and you're halfway there." John Lewis Time Out

"Proof that groovy dirty jazz isn't just the preserve of downtown New Yorkers"
Mixing It BBC Radio 3

"Unruly, Pinski Zoological sounds, these, from New Jersey-born drummer Mark Holub's energetic group.  With two alto saxophones, Fender Rhodes and bass, it's a deliberately old-fashioned concept that manages to work fresh angles on something as hackneyed as a Satie "Gymnopodie" and a David Byrne song.  Holub does almost all of the writing, though saxophonist Chris Williams claims a credit with the fine "Post Invasion Plan".  Gritty, raunchy jazz from a group who deserve to be checked out." Brian Morton The Wire

"Embracing everything from Erik Satie to David Byrne via Klezmer music" John Fordham The Guardian

"Woozily beautiful twin alto sax attack" Robert Shore The Metro

"The band sounds wild and dirty...you could feel the songs in the heart and in the stomach" Koen Schouten De Volkstrandt (review of gig at Europa Festival, Rotterdam)

"Painfully intense" Chris Parker Jazz UK

"...A disc which encompasses a hefty number of post Ornette stylistic areas ranging from Free Jazz through Free Improv to the NY Downtown scene, with plentiful Funk and Punk en route. And yet, despite this diversity and seeming disparity, the sheer energy, spiritedness and raggedy togetherness of the playing makes ‘Arboretum' an uplifting experience, and the album has an overall, winning coherence. A fine debut." Mike Hodges Jazz Views

"Led by New Jersey-born drummer Mark Holub, this London-based punk-jazz quintet certainly flaunt their John Zorn obsessions (the twin alto sax frontline, the frequent excursions into willfully hardcore improv) and also share Zorn's fondness for klezmer (taking an Erik Satie theme into Yiddish territory).  But they cover other bases: the bubbly Fender Rhodes on 'Joyous Hangover' and 'Aural Assault' recalls Herbie Hancock; the fractured funk of 'Clatter' is pure Art Ensemble of Chicago; while their lengthy assault on 'Talking Heads' 'Memories Can't Wait' shows a more ruminative mode." John Lewis Time Out

"New Jersey smacks into Hackney on this splendidly energetic debut...with slabs of spitting improvisation squaring off against urgent riffs.  The re-working of Satie is novel, with 'Gnossienne No 1' given an eastern(well, east end) reading that has all the verve of Ridley Road Market....a highly enjoyable first album." Andy Robson Jazzwise

"...one of the most important surprises of the year...It's a work perfectly done that puts together, with wisdom, different current tendencies of acoustic and electric jazz."4 Stars!
Cosimo Parisi, Musicboom, Italy

For more info contact: fiona@sebandfiona.com 0207 377 9868 or seb@sebandfiona.com 0207 3779892