Bass reeds for Necro Deathmort

Necro Deathmort - 'Overland' (Profound Lore Records)

Necro Deathmort approached me a while back to arrange 'Vortex', one of their tracks, for deep wind instruments and record it for their new album. It was a fun task, particularly as Contra-Bassoonist, Thomas Stone, arrived equipped with a tube to extend his bell-end to get down to a bottom A! Baritone sax, contra-bassoon and bassoon went down and the finished result is pretty epic. It was an honour to be involved!

You can hear and pre-order the Album HERE.

Half The Sky to play Cafe Oto

L-R: Yumi Hara, Dagmar Krause, Chloe Herington, Chris Cutler, Mitsuru Nasuno, Wataru, Miwazu

Totally delighted that Half The Sky have been confirmed to play Cafe Oto on June 22nd. Our first London show! We will be playing Lindsay Cooper's music from Henry Cow and News From Babel, premiering some tracks.

Tickets are likely to go pretty fast so speedy booking is advised. That can be done HERE!

Half The Sky - France & Japan

I recently had the honour of playing bassoon and soprano sax in Half the Sky at Rock In Opposition in Carmaux. Such a privilege to share a stage with Chris Cutler and Dagmar Krause as well as the rest of the band and what a challenge and joy to play Lindsay Cooper's music!

Our next dates will be Nov 30th-Dec 2nd in Tokyo.

VÄLVĒ & other news

Lots has been happening. Firstly, many thanks to A Sweet Niche and to all who came down to Servant Jazz Quarters last night - what a fun evening! Here's a little glimpse of what we did, courtesy of Kunal of Chaos Theory...

Pretty sounds from @chloeherington's VÄLVĒ last night #electronica #music #harp #saxophone… https://t.co/RsKk9VIpdr

— Chaos Theory (@Chaos_Theory_) July 26, 2016

The next VÄLVĒ gig will be 3rd August at New River Studios - it'll be a slightly different set as no Elen on harp so I'll be trying out some new stuff that I'm working on at the moment.

Knifeworld action is also in full swing. We've recently played the o2, Night of The Prog (in a beautiful Amphitheatre in Germany!) and Festival 23 in Sheffield - next stops are Supernormal and ArcTangent.

Practise is well underway for Half The Sky with Chris Cutler, Dagmar Krause and Yumi Hara - my goodness Linday Cooper's writing is complicated!!!!! Such an honour though and I'm learning so much. Can't wait for RIO!

Next up, some writing and recording for a NecroDeathMort track, more practise, more writing and then a much needed little holiday in France....

Half The Sky

I'm unbelievably excited and honoured to have been asked to play bassoon and soprano sax with Half The Sky at Rock In Opposition this September in France. Half The Sky preform the music of Lindsay Cooper (Henry Cow/News From Babel) and include original members Chris Cutler and Dagmar Krause.  More info as it happens!

Dark Continent: Part 3

Last week I performed part 2 of Tai Shani's piece at The Hayward and the final live instalment will be happening twice on Dec 6th.  Entry is free with a ticket to the exhibition.

http://mirrorcity.southbankcentre.co.uk/tai-shani-dark-continent-performances

MIRRORCITY

For the next three months, you can see the new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, MIRRORCITY, which examines our digital life in the city. Tai Shani commissioned a new music score for her piece, The Dark Continent. It's composed for synths, found sounds, bassoon and harp and exists as part of a headphone based installation featuring video screens through a viewing window and there will be 4 performances, 2 per evening of the 14th Nov and 6th Dec. The exhibition as a whole features some fascinating works, many of which involve multimedia.

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/mirrorcity-23-london-artists-86590

V A L V E live performance

I am rather excited to announce that a V A L V E performance will be happening on Nov 14th at 180 The Strand as part of Tai Shani's new work, 'The 7 Darknesses: A Very Gothic Reading' at Open Heart Surgery, curated by The Moving Museum. Tai asked me to compose and perform a live score to her text, which will be performed at the exhibition. We were delighted to hear that the piece had also been selected to be released on limited edition vinyl.

"TAI SHANI/
Tai Shani will stage a performance that seeks to test the boundary between the solitary and internal experience of read literature and the public and collective experience of performed literature in relation to the imaginary space, taste and tolerance. The 7 Darknesses: A Very Gothic Reading will orchestrate a dramatic reading of Shani’s ‘De Sadian’, explicitly violent and graphic text “Be, be the seven darknesses” originally commissioned by the metal fanzine ‘Buried’, the reading will be accompanied by a live score by Chloe Herington (V A L V E)."

Manning- 'The Root, The Leaf and The Bone'

Guy Manning's new album is now out on Festival Music and I had the pleasure of playing bassoon on track 3, 'Autumn Song'.



You can find a short Q & A about it here

The album is the latest in an impressive discography from Manning and features an array of guests alongside his regular band.

Russia, London, Brighton and back to Russia via Kingston...

The last month has been hectic to say the least. But in a very good way.

It all started with an acoustic set with Knifeworld at Celebr8 festival in Kingston.  We borrowed the Larcombe's beautiful harmonium and re-arranged the set and actually played sitting down.  Despite a serious alck of desk channels, it worked out pretty well and we look forward to bringing out the acoustic action in the future. 

Shortly after that, Chrome Hoof got a last minute booking to play a party at Strelka in Moscow.  Terribly exciting stuff. The venue was actually bang smack in the centre and we were just a stone's throw from the Kremlin.  I managed to be in Moscow for less than 24 hours but it was totally worth it.





During a 2 week period of putting on shows and playing them, I did a mad dash to Luxe in Spitalfields to guest with the spectacular A Sweet Niche.  Always a pleasure.  And a massive burst of sax squarking was just what I needed.

This Friday sees Knifeworld back in Brighton for our re-scheduled 'Roast On The Coast' gig following the snowed in action in January.  We are greatly looking forward to playing with Thumpermonkey and Ham Legion.

The month is rounded off with a return trip to Russia with Chrome Hoof, this time playing White Nights Festival in Perm.  I hear that it doesn't get dark and is right by the Ural mountains.

That will be just about it for the summer gig-wise as Chrome Hoof are due to release in the autumn, Knifeworld are more than halfway through finishing the album and I can concentreate on finishing V A L V E at last.

Guapo Bassoon

Just recorded some bassoon for the new Guapo album- spectacular band and, from what I've heard of the album so far, it will be immense. Very chuffed to be asked to parp on it!

Circumstance - 'Of Sleeping Birds'

I recently played for Circumstance's new location based sound piece,' of Sleeping Birds'.  Super interesting project.  A sound track was pre recorded and then 'mapped' to the centre of Cambridge.  Sarah Anderson and Duncan Speakman (the brains behind the project) created 40 beautiful hand made speaker boxes which housed a speaker and a GPS enabled android phone. Four groups of ten members of the public then followed a guide on a specified route around cambridge.  The effect was really quite magical.  Sarah had done some very odd stuff to my tenor sax parts and her duvet solo and we got to experience the finished work in all it's glory.