LUME

LUME is a small artist-led organisation I run with Cath Roberts with a focus on the creation of new original/improvised music.  Past activities have included concert series and tours, and we also release music from LUME projects on our Luminous Label.

The story so far…

LUME started life in 2013 as a weekly night that featured artists from across the UK creative music scene and beyond, acting as a space for new work and experimental music-making. A selection of live recordings from LUME gigs can be found on the Live At LUME compilation albums. The gigs took place at various venues, but mostly the now-closed Hundred Crows Rising in Islington followed by Long White Cloud in Hoxton. Alongside the weekly sessions we ran a monthly residency at the Vortex Jazz Club in Dalston from 2014 until 2016, and for our 2015/16 season, we combined the residency with monthly gigs in a variety of spaces around London, including record shops, galleries and bookshops.

LUME received the Jazz Services/PRSF Jazz Promoters Award in 2013 and 2014, and was a London Jazz Festival partner venue in 2013 and 2014, going on to host an afternoon of LUME LJF programming at the Barbican in 2015. In Spring 2015 we took our ensembles Quadraceratops and Entropi on the road for ‘LUME On Tour’; nine gigs around the UK with support from Arts Council England. We produced the inaugural one-day LUME Festival at IKLECTIK, London, in June 2016, new exploratory series LUME Lab in Spring 2017 and LUME Festival 2017 on 25th/26th June. LUME performed at the London Jazz Festival 2017 in a collaboration with Swiss musicians from Jazzwerkstatt Bern. This project grew into the UK/Swiss sextet MoonMot which toured the UK and Europe in February/March 2020.