Chutnosphere Vol: 1
J Fashole-Luke
The chance encounter that acted as the inspiration for this CD. At one of our ten gigs at Glastonbury festival in 2023 we found ourselves playing in an underground bar run by Irish travellers, at some indeterminate time closer to sunrise than sunset.
Over the weekend we had given a few guest solos to audience members on the spot, mostly to see how people reacted. Usually it was a little dance or running away… At this underground bar we asked an audience member his name, and then launched into Dinah.
Halfway through we called out his name, and within the blink of an eye, he jumped onto the piano that was conveniently on stage and played an unstoppable solo. The piano was connected to bike pedals, and one of the stage crew begun spinning the whole thing around.
J stayed on stage with us for the rest of the set, and one of the main reasons for making this CD was just to have an excuse to play with him again.
Against all the odds, we accidentally got playing together again later that year at another 5am festival jam session.
Recorded in Edmund Kell Unitarian Church, Southampton, March 2025.
http://www.instagram.com/jayefel
Fred Gairard
Fred’s playing is somehow more Chutney than any member of Django Chutney, and when Ben stayed at his house in Brussels, playing until 3 or 4am every night, he immediately began making plans to record.
We did 5 tunes with Fred, recorded at Full Circle in the centre of Brussels, the night after our concert there, before somehow fitting in another show 2 hours away, later that night. Some of this sleep deprivation can be heard, if you listen really closely.
Recorded in Full Circle, Brussels, June 2025. Huge thankyous to Bridie, Stephen Thomas, Full Circle and Fred Gairard.
https://fullcircle.eu/
https://balkavik.com/
Big Dave
Dave was sat at the bar for most of our concert, but we had already heard the rumours about this living blues legend in Antwerp.
He took some persuading from the locals, and the owner, to get up and play, being as wary of jazz musicians as we are.. But once he was cajoled on stage, we didn’t want to go back to playing jazz, so we settled into blues for the rest of the night.
Recorded at De Lichtkaai, Antwerp, June 2025. Thankyou to Jan, Koen and Big Dave!
https://lichtkaai.be/
https://www.elmored.be/js_artist/big-dave/
A Birchola
Two days in the Swiss mountains for a busking festival (with 5 shows a day) doesn’t leave much time for making friends, but we felt some affinity with A Birchola.
It can be difficult (amongst clowns and jugglers and people setting themselves on fire) to attract an audience with something as straightforward as music, but A Birchola made an art of it, creating a beautiful scene of dancing in the streets, like a mini holiday to Rio de Janeiro, spontaneously in an alpine village.
Recorded at Studios Le Barde Atomique, Paris, February 2025. Thank you to Marina, Lolo and A Birchola.
https://www.abirchola.com/
https://www.instagram.com/lebardeatomique/
Around About Dusk
Long time friends and musical co-conspirators, Around About Dusk were an obvious choice to approach for this record. Bill Frampton plays the harmony for Home on chromatic harmonica, Gus Dolding excels on clarinet, and Rachel Lawrence sings and plays accordion.
They suprised us with an impromptu song about coconuts at the end of the session.
Recorded in Bristol, March 2025.
https://www.rachellawrencemusic.co.uk/aroundaboutdusk/
Maxime Tirtaux
Our first meeting with Maxime was under a gazebo in a mediterannean storm on a Croatian island, trying to play loud enough to hear each other over the sound of the torrential rain.
He later described it as ‘like when dogs meet’ – he could smell that we were supposed to be friends. Many shows and tours back and forth between the UK and Belgium later, and we finally managed to fit in a recording session in his house in the Belgian ‘mountains’, and made the most of his collection of traditional instruments. These tracks feature resonator guitar, oud, Saz and 4/4 bass.
Recorded in South Belgium in June 2025.
Jan Halen
When one of our other bands was in dire need of a violin player who could learn two hours of complex music in the space of a week, didn’t mind being in a smelly van for 9 hours a day and was partial to a post gig nu-metal happy hour, Jan appeared, as if by magic, and ticked every single box. Her solos are wild and grapelli-esque.
Recorded in Tom’s bedroom in November 2025.
https://janhalenloops.com/
Gudrun Roos
We first met in Bruges at a concert with our ‘non-jazz’ bands. During the soundcheck, Ben started playing Misty as a warm up, and these beautiful vocals called out from the backstage dressing room.
We introduced ourselves and then straight after the concert, we all headed into the bar and played an impromptu set of jazz and swing with Gudrun, until the bar kicked us out. Since then we have made various concerts and guest appearances together, and Gudruns session was the first we managed to book in.
Recorded at Clijsters Audio Productions in Beringen, Belgium, June 2024. Special thanks to Gudrun Roos and Marijn Clijsters.
https://suzette-music.com/
Alice Phelps
A very old friend who (after many years) arrived at our show at the Lighthouse in Deal, and was promptly invited onto the stage. Lousiana Fairytale stayed with us from that gig, and we’ve since had the pleasure of playing together a few times.
Recorded in Brighton, October 2024.
https://www.alicephelps.com/