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Tom Skinner

London based drummer, composer and producer Tom Skinner has been a vital and central figure in the burgeoning underground music scene in London throughout the last 20 years.

Tom is presently a member of The Smile with Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood. Their debut album “A light for attracting attention” was released to critical acclaim in June 2022 and they are currently touring Europe with Worldwide dates to follow.

In 2012, Tom released his debut self-titled solo record under the alias Hello Skinny to critical acclaim, MOJO Magazine describing it as “…existing in that fertile zone where jazz, dub, techno and avant-pop deliquesce into an exhilarating free-for-all.” The second Hello Skinny album Watermelon Sun, released on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood label in 2017, featured a collaboration with acclaimed veteran New York composer and trombonist Peter Zummo.

Tom is also an original member of award winning band Sons Of Kemet alongside band-leader and frequent collaborator Shabaka Hutchings. Their third album Your Queen Is A Reptile [Impulse! 2018] garnered worldwide critical acclaim including a Mercury Prize 2018 nomination. Their latest album Black To The Future [Impulse! 2021] has been met with rave reviews, NME giving it 5 stars, claiming the album to be the band at their “most dynamic and urgent”.

In addition to his illustrious career in creating and performing music, Tom has curated his own bi-monthly live music night at The Pickle Factory in East London and hosts a monthly radio show on Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide FM.

Throughout his career, Tom has performed and recorded with many notable musicians such as Jonny Greenwood, Graham Coxon, Grace Jones, Kano, Zero 7, Floating Points, The Invisible, and many more.


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Album Review

Ruth Goller: Skyllumina

Read "Skyllumina" reviewed by Chris May


The Italian-born, British-based bassist and composer Ruth Goller has been rattling jazz's cage since 2007, the year she joined Acoustic Ladyland. The band was in the vanguard of what became known as “jazz punk," although its sound was closer to metal than classic punk, and the lineup included tenor saxophonist Pete Wareham and drummer Sebastian Rochford. Four years later, Acoustic Ladyland disbanded and Goller and Wareham morphed into Melt Yourself Down, where they were joined by tenor saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings ...

22
Interview

Tom Skinner: The Son Of Kemet Shines A Light

Read "Tom Skinner: The Son Of Kemet Shines A Light" reviewed by Chris May


Tom Skinner has been a vital presence on the alternative London jazz scene for close on twenty years. Yet, remarkably, only now in November 2022 is the drummer and composer releasing his first album under his own name. Voices Of Bishara features Skinner alongside four friends and fellow radicals: tenor saxophonists Nubya Garcia and Shabaka Hutchings, playing together on record for the first time, cellist Kareem Dayes and bassist Tom Herbert. As jazz supergroups go, this lineup would be hard ...

21
Album Review

Tom Skinner: Voices Of Bishara

Read "Voices Of Bishara" reviewed by Chris May


Voices Of Bishara is one of the top three jazz albums of 2022 so far and it would take the second comings of John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Horace Silver and Lee Morgan to threaten to dislodge it. Before going into the particulars, the backstory.... An epically cross-genre drummer, Skinner has lit up avantist British jazz and related musics for around twenty years. He emerged among the cohort of musicians loosely grouped around the self-help collective F-IRE (Fellowship ...

14
Album Review

Wildflower: Better Times

Read "Better Times" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


The ground-breaking London trio Wildflower features bassist Leon Brichard, saxophonist Idris Rahman, and drummer Tom Skinner of the group Sons of Kemet. Brichard and Rahman are founding members of Ill Considered. Similar in style, the music of Wildflower has the fundamentals of post-minimalism, hard bop, and free improvisation. Spiritual and powerful, Better Times mostly lives up to its title, even while leaving the frustrating sense of an unkept promise. An outstanding reed player on the hot London jazz ...

21
Album Review

Sons of Kemet: Black To The Future

Read "Black To The Future" reviewed by Chris May


Sons Of Kemet is led by tenor saxophonist, clarinetist and composer Shabaka Hutchings who, though he is far too modest to make any such claim himself, is the de facto standard-bearer for the new wave of musicians who have emerged on the London jazz scene since around 2015. The band is one of three Hutchings either leads or co-leads which are signed to Impulse!. The other two are the cosmic-fusion trio The Comet Is Coming and Shabaka & The Ancestors, ...

13
Album Review

Wildflower: Season 2

Read "Season 2" reviewed by Karl Ackermann


On paper, the UK trios Wildflower and Ill Considered bear an obvious resemblance. Each features the outstanding reed player Idris Rahman and bassist Leon Brichard, and both groups are groove-oriented progressive jazz. Wildflower is the slightly more melody-driven and the less raw of the two bands, with intricate improvisations interwoven throughout. Season 2 sees Rahman altering moods with his interchanging of the bass clarinet, bamboo flute, and his trademark tenor saxophone. Rahman is well-known in Britain for his ...

255
Album Review

Byron Wallen: Meeting Ground

Read "Meeting Ground" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


This album arose from a series of journeys--geographical, cultural and spiritual, but above all musical--undertaken by trumpeter and leader Byron Wallen, who first visited Morocco in 1996. The result of these journeys is a joyous and original record, fusing contemporary jazz with the music of the Gnawa musicians of Morocco.

The ten pieces of music on Meeting Ground tell the story of Bilal, a 6th century Abyssinian slave who was known for his beautiful singing. Released ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Skyllumina

International Anthem Recording Company
2024

buy

Voices Of Bishara

Brownswood/International Anthem/Nonesuch
2022

buy

Black To The Future

Impulse! Records
2021

buy

Better Times

Tropic of Love Music.
2021

buy

Season 2

Self Produced
2020

buy

Meeting Ground

Twilight Jaguar
2007

buy

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