Month: September 2025

This was a rare treat – an evening of excellent music hosted over the other side of the Pennines in Sheffield, ‘A Night of Prog’ but with a distinctly Canterburyesque hue: Needlepoint and Zopp were two bands I’d interviewed as part of PhD research last year, and the extended delvings into their histories are printed as part of the Canterbury 2.0 series here and here, as well as within the recent Prog article that was based on this project.

In fact, the bands tonight were part of a rarified 3 progged attack: Norwich’s Guranfoe, who I think had performed in full alongside Needlepoint the previous night in London, appeared in very stripped down form to start off the evening’s events: just two guitarists, one a highly fluent guest soloist who graced the later performances of the other bands with somewhat conspicuous, angular bodypopping in front of the stage, but on stage exchanged some highly intricate duo lines with his partner Whether these were adapted pieces from the Guaranfoe repertoire, I’m not sure, but it was polished and enjoyable interplay, I suspect somewhat curtailed because of the evening’s slightly delayed start.

Zopp came next. This is the fourth time I’ve seen them, and each performance brings new insights and experiences. A  set pared down to an hour meant some compromises, even more so when you are showcasing lengthy new material: I’ve heard the opener ‘Intuition Made It’ in a couple of guises now, and possibly snippets of the very lengthy ‘Endless Decrees’ too: this has evolved into something of an epic, and luckily by the time the band reached this penultimate track, some of the wonky sound had resolved itself, with guitar and bass in full sonic glory.

In the meantime, it was Ryan Stevenson’s trademark Stewartesque keyboard sounds which dominated; each solo silhouetted. The classics all got an airing: Before the Light from the first album; Toxicity and You from the second, the latter’s staccato intro played by saxophonist Myles Noble on a portable keyboard. Uppmarksamhet was sadly truncated before its wonderful improvised stretch out. All tracks were excellent, ‘You’ in particular, but the excitement of the new material, all stop-start sections, Stevenson’s increasingly confident vocals, wonderful bass lines and admirable precision is what will remain in the memory.

Stretched out across stage in an elongated front line, with Andrea Moneta’s extensive kit behind them, and a nest of leads stretching in all directions, Zopp’s kit would take some untangling before Needlepoint arrived on stage. The Norwegian band, who have just released their seventh album ‘Remnants of Light’, had made their UK debut only the night before, and were hotly anticipated. Their set-up was a relative contrast, a circle of intimacy with singer Bjorn Klakegg seated stage left, guitar cushioned on knee, one shoe off, the epitome of calm; fresh-faced drummer Ola Øverby with stripped down jazz kit, at the rear; bass player Nikolai Haengsle the only one standing, energetically powering through his lines to the left – he’s been an ever-present with the band since their inception; and the studious Erlend Slettevoll on Rhodes opposite. There was a personal, living room vibe to their performance, the understanding between the players unspoken and obvious.

Needlepoint’s calling card on record is their dreamy, pastoral vocal style; live there are some elements of this, but it is largely superseded by the most incredible grooves the band produce: one couldn’t take one’s eyes off the mesmeric performance of Øverby , fingers half way up both drum sticks, feeling every microbeat; whilst Slettevoll, head down, was economy in motion: every lick a considered refinement. I couldn’t give you an exhaustive breakdown of the tracks they played, even though I recognised all: this was very much a continuous stream of superbly executed music: on the hand as tight as it is possible to be in terms of a secure, unyielding base; on the other loose enough for all the players, including Klakegg’s own fluid guitar work, to add their own personal touches. I did spot in there ‘Web of Worry’, the magnificent ‘Soaring’, my own personal favourite ‘When The Ocean Meets The Sky’, the Stevie Wonder-like ‘Why’, and an unexpected highlight ‘The Diary of Robert Reverie’, the jaunty Caravan-esque title track from the band’s 4th album which tonight took on the guise of a hard-headed groove. We’d talked a couple of years ago at Facelift HQ about heading out to Norway to see Needlepoint perform, so enamoured were we of their back catalogue. Their brief visit to these shores has only reinforced that desire – it was an extraordinary performance.

Needlepoint – https://needlepoint.bandcamp.com/music

Zopp – https://zopp.bandcamp.com/

Guranfoe – https://guranfoe.bandcamp.com/

‘It’s fucking fantastic, this’. These words rang out somewhat incongruously to my left in amongst the dying notes of Led Bib’s opening track, resonating around a hushed, packed Puzzle Inn. But looking around me,  I could see little disagreement.

Promoting their new album ‘Hotel Puplik’, Led Bib were playing the Puzzle as part of a short UK tour, an intimate venue, a proper old boozer, with its monthly jazz gigs, characterised by a pass-the-hat policy rather than entrance fee, augmented by this unscheduled Monday night performance, one of the finest I’ve seen in recent years.  I’d most recently been at the Puzzle for a superb Gary Boyle gig where post-gig he related some slightly scurrilous stories about the Bilzen festival back in 1969 that he’d played at with Brian Auger (alongside Soft Machine). Since then Chris Martin had dropped in for a solo set a few weeks previously, prior to a few dates in somewhat larger arenas with Coldplay.

I’ve seen a number of the Led Bib’s members in the past few years as hired hands within Jack Hues’ extended bands, most memorably performing ‘Facelift’, in appropriate septet mode at the Westgate Hall in Canterbury alongside two of Syd Arthur’s Magill brothers, plus pianist Sam Bailey. But this was the first time I’d heard the band as a single entity. 5 albums in and I’m regretting that.

The band are a Mercury-nominated outfit, recently reduced to a four piece containing two saxophonists, electric bass and drummer. Instrumentation is minimal  – Mark Holub, (who makes the announcements, or at least spoke wryly between sets), deftly operates on a basic kit with Cutler-like omnipresence, and the two reed players play solely baritone and alto respectively. One might worry about the ‘middle’ vacated by their erstwhile keyboard player  – but great washes of echoed sounds often permeates between the opposing saxes Chris Williams and Pete Grogan – think a less manicured Delta Saxophone Quartet. Their collective collages are as much a part of the palette as the presence of the astonishing Liran Donin – often using the bass as a lead instrument: high up on the fret board crafting melody, or grinding out memorably dexterous rhythms.

This is music of high pedigree: improvised material played with sensitivity, freedom and tempo but never losing sight of a pre-ordained core: whether returning to the root of a driving bass theme or etching out anthemic lines between the saxophonists. There are folky hints here, North African rhythms even. It’s jazz, but not as you know it.

Hotel Pupik available at https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/hotel-pupik-3