Led Bib

Great that Led Bib has been nominated for the Mercury Prize with their new album Sensible Shoes.
With Babel of course (see photo above)
Close contacts with the Vortex. They launched their first album there, did a festival in the lead-up to recording Sizewell Tea (on Babel) and have played there regularly.
It's interesting that they don't come out of the regular London "conservatoire" circle but from Middlesex University, where they were taught by Loose Tubes alumni Chris Batchelor and Stuart Hall, with means a strong dose of the music of Hermeto Pascoal, amongst others.

Led Bib and Fraud!

I reckon that these two bands come under the heading "incendiary jazz". Building on Partisans, Polar Bear and Acoustic Ladyland's legacy with confidence and energy. Both are fearless. Seeing (and hearing) Fraud and Gwilym Simcock's trio within two days of each other really shows how strongly jazz is moving on with the new generation. Both with the same intensity and willingness to take the audience into new ground in an uncompromising manner though with (superficially) very different approaches - Fraud is in your face, Gwilym is subtler and acoustic
Both Gwilym and James Allsopp (one of Fraud's leaders) were direct contemporaries at the Royal Academy of Music. Indeed, I think that they even shared a house for a year.
Led Bib is playing at Bar Rumba on 8 March. It's FREE and starts at 6 p.m. (Also, drinks are two for one at that time, an added reason to be there.)