Javier Carmona's bedroom in 2008/2009 was one of North London's hotbeds for improvisation, hosting an ever evolving group of musicians dropping by for afternoon sessions, including myself and Roland Ramanan. Vole's original trio actually formed within the vibrant ranks of the London Improvisers Orchestra, with which we were all performing at the time. Vole's original idea was to explore the musical area where improvisation and composition blend and interact and soon developed in a spiky & noisy matter partially inspired by the harsher side of many of the Tim Berne's project we were all very fond of.

Vole went through various line up changes with Tom Greenhalgh sitting behind the drums when Javier left London, then becoming a quartet with Alexander Hawkins on electric piano, eventually replaced by Ricardo Tejero on saxes. The last incarnation saw Vole becoming a quintet including Cath Roberts on baritone sax, Colin Webster on tenor sax and Andrew Lisle on drums.

We recorded an album as a trio published by Babel Label (The Hillside Mechanisms 2012) followed by a session in 2016 as a quartet with Ricardo and Tom, still unreleased.

      

Vole:

Roland Ramanan: Trumpet

Roberto Sassi: Guitars

Cath Roberts: Baritone sax

Colin Webster: Tenor sax

Andrew Lisle: Drums

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