Slate Trio - Guitarist Neil Smith (best-known for his work with This Is The Kit, as well as his own bands The Brackish and Sliders) leads this instrumental trio featuring truly exceptional drummer Matthew Jones (The Brackish, Nuala Honan ) & multitalented bassist Alex Heane (Rachael Dadd, Baldhu ). With influences ranging from jazz, psych & systems music, motorik, funk and African rhythms to John Scofield & Thurston Moore, you're in for an angular, pointy, and occasionally hard'n'heavy treat.

Gig review by Tony Benjamin...

'Slamming straight into the poignantly-titled Hippies Need Houses the trio set out their stall: hyper-manic guitar bursts, slam beat drumming, sudden mood swings and moments of melodic beauty. It was a formula that ran through the rest of the set, a fine balance between collective interactions, tight scored passages and free improvisation.

Neil has an almost infinite grasp of what the electric guitar can do, with the minimum of pedal effects and the maximum of sheer technique, while Matt and Alex have the skills to go with that flow, keeping a three-way integrity to their sound. And they all had their moments, Matt bursting into a flurry of hard rock bombastics against Neil’s Hendrix-style feedback interlude, Alex slipping an elegant bass solo line over distant guitar and clicking rimshots.'

Leeem Quartet-
Composer LIAM O’CONNELL (Leeem, My Octopus Mind) has created music for clarinet trio and double bass + live effects. Inspired by David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977), the work fuses experimental jazz, neo-classical, and progressive rock. The music pulses between raw acoustic force and processed textures, creating a sound world that feels both intimate and otherworldly — an ancient/contemporary ritual poised on the edge of dysfunction.