Sloth Racket’s collective sound is dense and detailed, with heavyweight textures from the hugely satisfying twin saxophone plus guitar front line. Together they are the perfect purveyors of clatter-jazz – creating that ‘playing while falling down the stairs’ sound via a constant improvised five-way balancing act of glorious and successful freedom.

…the smeared, impressionistic dialogue of Proximity Warning feels like a free improv mosh pit, giving way to the thoughtful meditation of We Decide What’s Next in which Hunter’s minimal touches mark out the boundary walls of contemplation. The title track opens like sleazy, hard-bitten, post-apocalyptic lounge music, before opening up to some horn lines that are positively lush, supported on a scaffold of percussion and a lumpy cushion of distortion. In Butterfly Takes The Train, pointillistic aleatoria leads to a middle section with deeper resonances, some of the unison sax work hinting at the sounds and building blocks of jazz repurposed to a more personal and idiosyncratic language. The clean structure of Terraforming allows the bass and drums to shine clearly – a solid foundation that becomes less about straight lines the closer you listen – before culminating in the group’s signature clatter…

Dismantle Yourself is full of tiny micro-conversations and statements – a fleeting, transitory, yet cohesive, endlessly fascinating sequence of collisions and collusions. Sloth Racket – plenty of great racket, not actually that slothful.

Proximity Warning
We Decide What’s Next
Dismantle Yourself
Butterfly Takes The Train
Terraforming
(54:59)
Luminous LU011

Cath Roberts – baritone saxophone
Sam Andreae – alto saxophone
Anton Hunter – guitar
Seth Bennett – double bass
Johnny Hunter – drums

Dismantle Yourself is available on CD (with zine option!) and download from the Sloth Racket Bandcamp page.

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