Roller Trio Speak to THSH

2012 Mercury Prize nominated Roller Trio play the Hare and Hounds on Wednesday 29th May as part of the Town Hall & Symphony Hall Jazzline Series. Described as the ‘New sound of UK Jazz’ by Gilles Peterson the trio recently spoke to THSH about their  fourth coming début Birmingham show. This is what they said…

Since releasing our début album we’ve taken our music up and down the UK and to Turkey, Germany and Belgium.

Our next UK date is at the Hare and Hounds in Birmingham; we’re looking forward to playing in the West Midlands for the first time.

Playing live (like most bands) is probably our favourite part of music making. We have played in all sorts of places to all sorts of people, from The Roundhouse in London, to Yorkshire Sculpture Park, to a mates wedding.

We’ve played on the same bill opposite artists as contrasting as singer-songwriter Ben Howard and the legendary experimental band Polar Bear, both of whom we had the chance to chill with and pick the brains of.

After a hectic awards season where we experienced the highs and lows of being temporary ‘token jazz’ celebrities (highs being lots of free food and beer, lows being asked by 4Music presenters ‘would you rather have your own venue in Moscow or a year’s supply of potatoes?’) we’ve been working on the sound track to an art film created by Ray Kane and writing music for our next album which we’re recording next month.

The material for the film was gathered by recording contrasting approaches to free-improvisation in full 50 minute takes, followed by lots of editing, added effects and a few overdubs.

Our new music for the album applies a more melodic approach to the compositional techniques explored in our debut and integrates our individual sounds, styles and influences into each piece in a more organic, consistent and balanced way.

We look forward to playing and meeting new people in Birmingham, we’ll be playing a mix of old and new material. It’ll be tight, energetic and freshly inoculated with adrenaline following our Germany tour.

Check out the video of Roller Trio when they performed at the 2012 mercury music awards below to get an idea of what to expect:

It all starts at 8:30 pm Wednesday 29th May. Advanced tickets for the show are still available right here.