Babel News Last updated 2008-04-16
2008-04-16 Christine Tobin 15 date UK tour starts 25th April
On the imminent release of her seventh album this month, the vocalist, described by the Sunday Times as 'a singer who refuses to be boxed in by convention', starts a 15 date UK tour on 25th April.
Christine's seven-piece band on the dates will be as follows: Liam Noble (piano), Kate Shortt (cello), Phil Robson (guitar), Dave Whitford (double bass), Thebe Lipere (percussion) and Simon Lea drums.
The updated tour is as follows:
25th April - BRIGHTON Komedia
26th April - LONDON The Vortex Jazz club
10th May - LIVERPOOL The Bluecoat
15th May - GATESHEAD The Sage
16th May - SHEFFIELD Millenium Hall
17th May - HOWDEN Here and Now Music Festival
22nd May - NOTTINGHAM Bonnington Theatre
31st May - CANTERBURY Orange St Music Club
6th June - SOHO Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club (Headlining)
7th June - BIRMINGHAM Polish Club
8th June - BRISTOL Colston Hall
12th June - NORWICH Arts Centre
3rd July - LONDON Lauderdale House
13th July - CHELSEA 606 Club
19th July MANCHESTER Jazz Festival
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8-04-11 Babel at The Cheltenham Jazz Festival: Phil Robson and Outhouse Ruhabi
Phil Robson's Derby Jazz commission 'Six Strings and the Beat' will preview their new album released at the end of April on Babel at the Cheltenham International Jazz Festival. They perform on 3 May at the Town Hall Pillar Room at 12 noon. (click here for booking details)
Just a short walk over to the Everyman Theatre and you'll be able to catch a 1.30 performance by an extrordinary ensemble made up of LOOP Collective quartet Outhouse (pic left) and a visiting Gambian drumming troupe. Coinciding with the official release of their debut album Outhouse on Babel, the quartet have been taking part in an ongoing project with Wolof drummers from Gambia. The Wolof drummers will bring their sabar drums to London and Kent forming the extraordinary Outhouse Ruhabi including a live event scheduled for the prestigious Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and Cheltenham Jazz Festival in May 2008. Outhouse Ruhabi will include Kaw Secka who plays Tamna drum on the track Pig on Outhouse's new album. For a glimpse of what to expect follow the link here to the first of three videos of a live event filmed during their three week stay in December 2007 in Gambia where they studied and played with 5 Wolof drummers. An interesting article on the partnership and its developments can be found on the BBC website here
The Outhouse Ruhabi tour dates are as follows:
3 May: Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, UK. (Click here for more details)
13 May: The Brook Chaltham, UK
14 May: ICA, London, UK
15 May: Kalabash, London, UK
17 May: Orange Street, Canterbury, UK
Outhouse will resume as a quartet following these dates for a couple of gigs as follows:
29 May: The Sands, Gainsborough, UK
18 July: Brighton Jazz Club, Brighton, UK
Keep going to our live page which is updated regularly for more Outhouse gigs to support the release of the upcoming album Outhouse
2008-03-0
7 Paula Rae Gibson is featured Time Out live preview at the Vortex next Tuesday
New Babel-signed vocalist Paula Rae Gibson previews her forthcoming album Maybe Too Nude (now available as digi download here or CD here) as well as her debut No More Tiptoes and new songs at the Vortex with guitarist/cellist Richard Bolton and pianists Kit Downes and Tom Pilling at the Vortex Jazz Club in Dalston next Tuesday 11 March. Here is the current Time Out magazine preview features of the gig:
"The red-top media has been clogged by a paparazzi-fuelled moral panic about certain female celebrities going into psychological meltdown under the weight of their own fame/drug habit/inability to stay home and call a doctor. The antidote to these self-induced traumas can be found in the searingly honest, glacially beautiful music of Paula Rae Gibson. Her approach to making both music and art was born out of some genuine traumas that are now distilled into her strikingly original work. It was recovering after a near fatal car crash, aged 21, that she discovered the therapeutic qualities of iconic arty German jazz label ECM and its prodigal son Keith Jarrett. Yet it was the death of her husband, the filmmaker Brian Gibson (director of the Oscar-winning ‘What's Love Got To Do With It'), ten years ago that set Gibson on her current unswervingly honest course. ‘If you can watch a man you love with every cell in your body die over 900 days, you get a feeling that you can do anything,' she says plainly. A multimedia artist who's never formally studied anywhere, her cyclical creativity finds her combining all three disciplines of singer, photographer and filmmaker into an immersive live experience. At a recent gig in Vienna she even made the musicians play in the dark. With a crystalline voice that switches between low confessional tones to fragile, gossamer-light highs, Gibson's acerbic wit constantly questions her (and the listener's) desires, feelings and self-image. Her compelling debut, ‘No More Tiptoes', from last year, featured beautifully stark duologue between Gibson's Tori Amos-style soliloquies and pianist Tom Pilling's perfectly placed chords, resulting in deep space balladry and subterranean electric blues. Her new album, ‘Maybe Too Nude', adds a burbling electro-pop production edge (courtesy of Will ‘Goldfrapp' Gregory and Martin Barker) offering a more accessible path into Gibson's fearlessly frank world. Tonight she'll be performing with both Pilling and young Empirical pianist Kit Downes, as well as cellist-looper Richard Bolton, while her quirky films serve as back-projections. (Mike Flynn). YOU CAN BOOK ONLINE FOR THE VORTEX BY CLICKING HERE .
Paula is also a photographer and besides featured in the luxurious booklet ineide the digi pack of the new album you can see a show of her photographic and art work at the Rollo Gallery, Cleveland Street in April.
2008-02-20 C
hristine Tobin's Secret Life of a Girl - update
The beautiful new sleeve artwork (left) for her upcoming 7th album for Babel designed by Bron Jones (aka Eve Libertine) has arrived. The band line up for the CD is as follows: Christine Tobin: voice; Phil Robson, guitars; Kate Shortt, cello; Liam Noble, piano and prepared piano; Dave Whitford, Double bass; Thebe Lipere, Percussion and Simon Lea, drums, Alex Bonney, programmer.
The album will include mostly originals, one of them "Bye Bye" co-written with poet Eva Salzman. The non-originals are new arrangements by Christine of Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows" and Phil Robson's arrangement of Rufus Wainwright's "Poses". The originals share a common theme of stories featuring different female characters, hence the title "Secret Life Of A Girl". (for a couple of sample tracks that will leave you gasping for more click here and click on tracks Dreamland and Corner of an Eye). The album contains a title track programmed by young trumpeter, producer and composer Alex Bonney.
2008-02-20 Paula Rae Gibson new album Maybe Too Nude available as CD purchase or digital download 
now. Performing Vortex 11 March. Exhibition at Rollo Gallery in April.
The brand new CD from UK chanteuse-songwriter Paula Rae Gibson has just arrived at Babel in a luxurious Digi Pack sleeve and booklet containing Paula's unique artwork and photography. 'Maybe Too Nude' consists of Paula's gripping autobiographical originals created with Will Gregory of Goldfrapp, Martyn Baker and pianist Tom Pilling (who appeared on her previous album) is set for official shop release in early summer and sees her move into more experimental electronic spheres. But It is available now and you can purchase it with a luxurious 32-page booklet here. The track 'We Blow It Everytime' by this singer/songwriter was selected as a track of the year in Time Out in 2007. (You can download it here) Also a photographer, her last book won a German Photo Book Award and there is an exhibition of her work in the Photography Institute in February.
Paula will perform material from the new album and her previous album No More Tiptoes and new songs at the Vortex with Richard Bolton, Kit Downes and Tom Pilling on 11 March. You can book online here .
There will be an exhibition of her art at Rollo Gallery, 51 Cleveland Street, W1 from 18 April. More information here
2008-01-25 New 2008 release schedule just announced
We have news of forthcoming album releases for the first half of 2008 and it promises to be one of the busiest and most exciting in the label's history.
The provisional release schedule is as follows:
3 March - Led Bib - Live (ltd edition of 1000)
12 May - Bourne, Davis, Kane - Lost Something
14 April - Outhouse - Outhouse
28 April - Phil Robson – Six Strings and the Beat
26 May - Christine Tobin - Secret Life of a Girl
16 June - Paula Rae Gibson - Maybe Too Nude
Mid August - Big Air - Ten Tall Tales
Christine Tobin is also currently lining up a tour in April, May and June anticipating her new album Secret Life Of A Girl in May. Meanwhile Christine's guitarist Phil Robson has his own project Six Strings and the Beat on tour in May to coincide with the release of the album. You can catch an early warm up for the March album release from the Bourne.Davis.Kane trio in a few days time at the Vortex in Dalston on 15 January. Online tickets are available here or phone 0207-254 4097.
2007-12-12 New Babel download site offers 3 x quality of ITunes!!
Our new download site on http://www.babel.ithinkmusic.com is starting to become a popular way for people to buy Babel music. Besides the fact you can buy single tracks or whole albums at cheap prices compared to CDs, the main reason for this is the fact that fans of good music now have a quality (at 320kbps) which is the highest possible for mp3s, about 3 times that of the same music on sale at ITunes. Complete albums are mostly £6.99 or less and single tracks are 79p and unlike iTunes and other major download sites, Babel keeps a higher percentage of sales income, allowing more reinvestment in future recordings, and more income going to the musicians. We can get downloads up quicker and intend to make available some exclusives, often unavailable elsewehere on the net.
2007-11-21 Billy Jenkins, Polar Bear, Acoustic Ladyland, Christine Tobin all make Guardian 1000 pre-death list
Four albums are featured from the Babel catalogue in The Guardian's current '1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die'. They are Polar Bear's Mercury nominated Held on the Tips of Fingers (click here), Billy Jenkins' Scratches of Spain (click here), Acoustic Ladyland's Last Chance Disco (click here), and Christine Tobin's You Draw The Line (click here). All the albums are available for download and all except Scratches of Spain for sale online.
2007-11-21Billy J
enkins blues and chess sessions at the Vortex
Billy Jenkins and Steve Morrison return to the Vortex on Sunday afternoons throughout November. Play chess and listen to the blues. No song played twice! Just £5. Book via the Vortex
2007-11-21 Portico Quartet on Robert Elms Radio London show today
Portico Quartet will be live on BBC London this afternoon at 2.30, playing live as part of a London Jazz Festival special on the Robert Elms show. If you miss it don't despair as you can catch the show online here
2007-11-14 Paula Rae Gibson book a selected title at the German Photo Book Awards.
Paula Rae Gibson's latest book of photos and DVD video art has been made a special selection of the German Photo Book Awards for 2008. The book and videos will be displayed at many book fairs throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Her new album Maybe Too Nude will be available on Babel in early 2008. Several tracks from the album are included in the book. Click here to listen to samples of Paula's work and for more information on currently available downloads.
2007-11-14 Portico Quartet on Gilles Peterson's Worldwide show
A session by Portico Quartet will be broadcast early Thursday morning between 2-4am on the BBC Radio 1 show. You can listen online for the next week by clicking here. They will also appear live on BBC London's Robert Elms show on 21 November.
2007-11-09 Tickets selling fast for Babel artists at this year's London Jazz Festival
Running from 16-25 November.
16th - Vortex - Partisans Book online here
18th - Vortex - Billy Jenkins (Here is the Blues! Chess Sessions) 4-6pm. (020 7254 4097 www.vortexjazz.co.uk)
18th - Vortex - Radioplay feat. Ed Gaughan, Christine Tobin, Phil Robson & Dave Whitford. Book online here
20th - Vortex - Eclectica feat. Portico Quartet and The Gannets (free improv offshoot of Guillemots) Book here
21st - Vortex - Fraud (with Norwegian guitarist Stian Westerhus) Book online here
23rd - The Luminaire - Led Bib and Fraud Buy online here
24th - Barbican Freestage - Phil Robson's Six Strings and the Beat. Entry is free.
24th - Purcell Room - Bill Bruford/Michiel Borstlap plus the Portico Quartet (0871 663 2505 or click here
24th - Vortex - The Ingrid Laubrock Quintet Buy online here
25th - Vortex - Billy Jenkins (Here is the Blues! Chess Sessions) 4pm. (020 7254 4097 www.vortexjazz.co.uk)
25th - Purcell Room - Adventures in Sound - Tom Arthurs Trio and Gutbucket Tel:0871 663 2505/click here
There is a special offer at the Vortex during the London Jazz Festival : for just £50 you can walk in free to any of the gigs during the period from 16-25 November at the Vortex. Besides the Babel acts listed above, amongst the musicians performing over this period will be Tim Berne, Ian Shaw, Gwyneth Herbert, and Zoe Rahman. For the full Vortex listings click here and to take up this fantastic offer click here
2007-11-06 Paula Rae Gibson album now mastered. Download now.
Paula Rae Gibson's new album has now been mastered and the first track is now available for download. Now named "Maybe Too Nude", the first track Black Hole, created with Will Gregory of Goldfrapp, is now on our new download site here. No More Tiptoes is also available for download. . Click here for more information on downloads. There is also a great review from Amazon on her part of the Babel site here
2007-10-26 Portico Quartet launch new album at St Barnabas Church in Soho on 30 October
Rising stars Portico Quartet celebrate their debut album ‘Knee Deep In The North Sea' (officially released on 5 November) with a night of new and exciting music in the intimate surroundings of St Barnabus Church, Soho on 30 October. Alongside a showcase of their own material, Portico Quartet in association with the Vortex have invited several of their favourite new artists to perform. All are unsigned talents currently making their mark in the capital. They are Ayanna Witter Johnson, David J and Zashiki Warash.iYou can now purchase the album online here on CD, or download (by track or whole album) in high quality digital form here DJ and record label owner Giles Peterson is a big fan of the bands' and played the titel track to open his Worldwide Radio 1 programme on Tuesday. you can listen to the track, it's at the beginning of the show here
2007-10-17 Christine Tobin performs rare London gig at the Vortex, Fri 26 October
There's a rare chance to see one of the UK's most idiosyncratic jazz singers in London performing at the Vortex Jazz club in Dalston on Friday 26 October. With a new album release eagerly awaited in 2008, ChristineTobin aims to cover "a wide variety of topics & styles and will champion diversity, love, great musicianship, courage and celebrate that most fundamental principal we all share... the need to communicate." Her regular band will include
Liam Noble on piano & keyboard, Phil Robson on guitar, Dave Whitford on double bass, Thebe Lipere on percussion and Simon Lea on drums. For more info see the vortex website at www.vortexjazz.co.uk, book direct on
020 7254 4097, or buy online here
2007-10-17 Fraud in session on Jazz on 3 coming up on 26 October
James Allsopp and Tim Giles' incendiary young jazzers Fraud will take Radio 3's Jazz on 3 by storm next Friday on 26 October with a session lasting half the show. In the second half Allsopp and Giles will join with LIMA Collective's bassist Dave Kane for a second session of less structured improvisation. The sessions will be made available on the Radio 3 website here for a week following the show's broadcast.
2007-10-10 Huw Warren on tour with violinist Mark Feldman, at the Vortex on 16 October
In a tour that takes in Germany, Austria and Holland, American virtuoso violinist Mark Feldman's group featuring Huw Warren touch down in the UK on 16 October where he will appear at The Vortex Jazz Club, Dalston. Performing music from his new ECM recording 'What Exit', the band will also feature musicians at the high end of the NY scene, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Tom Raine. Tickets are available online here at or call the Vortex on 020 7254 4097
2007-10-08 Listen online to Phil Robson Quartet on Radio 3 Jazz Line Up
Phil Robson will be performing with his quartet (with saxophonist Mark Hanslip, bassist Dave Whitford, drummer Gene Calderazzo) live on Radio 3 Jazz Line-Up on 6 October at 4 p.m. You can now listen online for a week by clicking here
2007-09-29 Billy Jenkins Songs Of Praise live! receives 4 star review in The Times
"One of the great mysteries of British life – along with the disappearance of the sparrow and why anyone takes Boris Johnson seriously – is the failure of Jenkins's music to galvanise the public. This live set by the guitarist, comedian and bowls enthusiast is one of the finest of his long career. With a crack band featuring sax, trombone, tuba and violin, he ranges from the punk-jazz of Brilliant and Donkey Droppings to the gospel wail of Blues is Calling Me . Bhopal is a haunting change of mood before a ska version of the corny old pop tune Sunny , featuring string-scalding axe virtuosity. The wayward world of Jenkins has never sounded more enticing." John Bungey (The Times)
2007-09-28 Paula Rae Gibson to release 'Scribbles as a Face' on Babel
Vocalist and photographer Paula Rae Gibson will be releasing her new album, which includes collaborations with Will Gregory of Goldfrapp and Martyn Barker on Babel. Her latest album, No More Tiptoes, was released on 33Jazz, while her latest book is "I'll Always Walk Away" (Kehrer Verlag). She has just returned from Tokyo and will be launching the book at Frankfurt Book Fair on 11 October. Mike Flynn in Time Out wrote about her:
"With comparisons to Kate Bush and Tori Amos, but a distinctly improvised jazz twist, this is refreshingly honest music" Click here for more information
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7-09-26 Tom Arthurs and Richard Fairhurst's Mesmer awarded **** in The Guardian
The recent Babel release Mesmer by the young duo of flugelhornist Tom Arthurs and pianist Richard Fairhurst is featured at the top of the Jazz CD reviews in The Guardian today with John Fordham awarding the CD 4 stars and describing the recording as "
a subtle and beautifully performed dialogue between two composer/improvisers..." You can read the full review on The Guardian website here
2007-09-26 Portico Quartet new CD available now on pre-order online