North-east London band Led Bib, a Mercury nominee last year, return with a brand new album on 7 February called Bring Your Own released through Cuneiform Records. It’s the first big jazz album release of the year in the UK, which Led Bib plan to follow up by touring nationally throughout March.

The five-piece – fronted by Mark Holub on drums with Liran Donin, upright and electric bass; Toby McLaren, Fender Rhodes; and the alto sax duo of Chris Williams and Pete Grogan – have already been playing together for seven years and their remarkable chemistry shows through on each track.

This their fifth album, Bring Your Own is a mix of free jazz, rock and folk flavours and much more besides that takes you by the scruff of the neck from the off, with its fast-paced, catchy sound influenced by a wide range of music from Pink Floyd to Ornette Coleman and John Zorn.

Leader Mark Holub comments in pre-release publicity material: “What’s been created is an album that documents everything we’ve ever done over the past seven years, a culmination of all of the different directions we’ve gone in, but with the sound pushed in new and exciting places. The tracks are concise without sacrificing the integrity of the improvising.”

The highlights of the album for me are definitely the tracks ‘Winter’ and ‘Little x’, the latter track reminding me slightly off a horror movie soundtrack, whereas ‘Winter’ has a 1960s Mingus feel, with long held notes giving an idea of continuity, building slowly to a crescendo and then breaking through betraying a clear folk influence.

Tour dates are Purcell Room, London (28 February); The Harley, Sheffield (2 March); The Spin Off, Leeds (3 March); Kazimier, Liverpool (4 March); Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh (5 March); Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow (6 March); Dempsey’s, Cardiff (9 March); and Gateshead Jazz Festival, Gateshead (26 March).

– Angela Lopes