hey all,

Been meaning to do a blog update for a while but been so busy lately. All good though, it’s been a grand productive time.

What’s been happening? Well Tor Fest went really well! This was the first year we did it with any funding outside of beer and ticket sales so cheers to Sound and Music for putting their trust in us as part of their Composer Curator programme. I ended up performing twice over the weekend. As Nwando Ebizie’s back up dancer / trombone player / bubble blower and with Gnod on trombone. Both really amazing experiences. I didn’t get to see tons of stuff at the festival because I was mostly chained to the door handing out tickets but everything I saw was ace. Especially loved Space Afrika at the end of the night. Hopefully we’ll get Josh back in Tod again.

We put on a show for Richard Dawson last week on Jake’s birthday. Richard wanted to organise a charity show to raise money for RNIB and I’m happy to say we took £800 on the door as entrance fees and almost £200 in poster sales. Still got some of them left if you want one, get in touch if so. Would be great to hand a cool grand over to the charity at the end of this week!

Next gig we have up is Tola Custy, Hawthonn and Birds & Ships at the lion next week. This is another of the Sound and Music sponsored events. Check out the event on the new West Yorkshire gig directory here – http://westyorksdiymusic.org/wp/event/tola-custy-hawthonn-birds-and-ships/

I’ve been playing some gigs as well. I performed with the amazing Roy Claire Potter a week or so ago under the name SatNavTod where we’re working with a mix of sound design and spoken word. The show went really well and it’d be ace to work with Roy again sometime.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on a new composition for hcmf// which will be premiered this year the festival on the 18th November. Check out the details here on the hcmf/// website. All the programme looks brilliant this year and I’m so excited to be a part of it as a composer and as part of the team working on the new Young Curator project.  It’s really wonderful to be working somewhere I really believe in. All this amazing music happening in Huddersfield is a really wild thing to be part of.

Next gig I’ve got will be at No Bounds Festival in Sheffield where I’ll be performing as part of an event curated by Sandhya Daengen http://noboundsfestival.co.uk/artists/sandhya-daemgen I’ll be performing a solo piece inspired by Laurie Anderson during the event. Kelly Jayne Jones will be there as well.

I’ll be performing with Kelly again in December on a new interpretation of a piece by Rebecca Lee. We’re revisiting the micro opera we were working on last year in Pendle, will post about all that nearer the time.

Plutonic Shine by The Slowest Lift is still available here on our bandcamp page https://theslowestlift.bandcamp.com/album/plutonic-shine and Julian has just sent off the artwork for the vinyl version so will be posting about that when I know the details soon! This time with lyric sheet so you can sit and read our brains at your leisure.

Ok that’ll do for now. Happy Libra everyone! My bday soon 🙂

Love, Sof x

Few shots from our recent live sound workshop that we ran as part of the Calderdale Sound Women Network project called “The Valley”. The aim of the project is to engage women and non-binary folks in the Upper Calder Valley in music and sound activities. We’re growing the network and if you’d like to get involved feel free to say hi on Facebook (link) or check out our website here. 

less than 3 weeks away..! This year’s amazing Tor Fest 🙂 Only a few weekend tickets left now so grab one quickly here – TICKET LINK 

New album out today! Listen to it on bandcamp or buy a tape 🙂

This is the third release from The Slowest Lift who are a West Yorkshire based band comprising of Sophie Cooper (Tor Festival) and Julian Bradley (Vibracathedral Orchestra).

This record is being self-released by The Slowest Lift on limited edition cassette and on digital download. There will be a vinyl version coming later released by Feeding Tube Records.

Julian and I are self-releasing our latest The Slowest Lift album called ‘Plutonic Shine’. It’s available on pre-order at the moment so click on our bandcamp link above to purchase one. The record is due a vinyl release later on this year so keep your eyes open for that. There are 2 tracks you can hear now and the rest will be up on the 2nd August which gives us time to dub the tapes.

I’m still obsessed with The Slowest Lift and constantly blown away by what can be artistically achieved through working with another human on a project like this. I couldn’t do this without Julian, it’s so unique to our collaboration and that’s really a special thing to have going on. I encourage new collaborations constantly so I hope this is inspiring to read, find a like minded friend to make something new happen, it’s a wild process.

New incoming… 19th July

Last time I saw Bong play with Bridget Hayden the lads from Bad Guys were crowd surfing and that’s quite impressive when the music is really slow –

Bong with Bridget Hayden

Stoner Doom legends Bong will be joined by Bridget Hayden, this is a rare chance to see them play together! If you caught their collaboration at Supernormal a couple of years ago then you’ll know this is not to be missed! Bong will be bringing their own brand of heavy droned out doom with Bridget bringing her signature feedback infused fuzzy blues guitar and haunting vocals.

Sat Nav Tod

A new collaboration from Roy Claire Potter and Sophie Cooper, exploring themes around travel and place through improvised trombone and spoken word.

Tickets- https://www.skiddle.com/whats-on/Oldham/Golden-Lion-Hotel/Bong-with-Bridget-Hayden-Sat-Nav-Tod/13569515/

I wanted to wait until all the shows were available until I posted about my great friend Alannah Chance’s amazing achievement called New Weird Britain which is a 4 episode documentary series on BBC Radio 4. Alannah has worked really hard on this series which involved doing a ton of research into the UK DIY and contemporary music scenes today. The shows are only half an hour each so obviously not everything can be covered but I think these shows do a fantastic job capturing a bit about what’s happening out and about. I hope people listening will be encouraged to do a bit of research themselves after hearing them and will perhaps do something like visit us at Tor Festival in Todmorden, our little corner of this weird island, which is discussed in the second episode. Anyway, great job Alannah, keep at it!

Click hear to listen to all the shows.