Vipertime x Moron Butler – A Leeds Jazz Festival Album Launch / Wharf Chambers

Final DJ Lubi x Leeds Jazz Festival show is a real banger. A full-on, jazz/punk meltdown with two bands from each genre coming together to launch their joint release at Leeds’ very own answer to CBGBs….Wharf Chambers. The date is Wednesday 27th May (a day outside of the official festival dates but we don’t mind being a closing event/party), and the bands are Vipertime and Moron Butler. Here’s the lowdown.

Leeds aggro-jazz group Vipertime and Kent-based post-punk band Moron Butler launch their new collaborative album ‘Vipertime & Moron Butler’. Lyric heavy, hard edged and combining the acerbic attack of Gang of Four, the
motoric drive of krautrock and the abstractions of John Coltrane, the album is released this May on Hastings label Property Of The Lost. Expect a set from each band plus plenty of cross-pollination.

Born in the snake pit of Leeds house parties, aggro-jazz four-piece Vipertime have earned a ferocious reputation at venues and festivals across the UK, honing their craft while pushing their line up of saxophone, bass and twin drum sets to its sonic limits. Their excursions to the borders of modal jazz, post-punk, dub and afrobeat have built a sound that is simultaneously unique to the band and a microcosm of the thriving UK scene. Beginning as a free-improvising group in 2018, Vipertime swiftly began writing and moved into the studio to create 2019’s Shakedown, 2020’s Limbs/All Our Heroes Are Dead and 2023’s critically acclaimed Arise. This album received airplay on BBC 6 Music, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC Introducing and Worldwide FM, was championed by Iggy Pop, Gilles Peterson and Colin Curtis, and was placed in Louder Than War’s ‘Albums of 2023’ list.

“That was Vipertime. I wouldn’t mind hanging out somewhere where that was going on. I guess I’d have to go to Leeds” – Iggy Pop
“Technically outstanding and phenomenally imaginative” – Louder Than War
“Dance floor ready” – Jamie Cullum (BBC Radio 2 Jazz Show)
“They have that deep, angry sound that you find in Gato Barbieri and Steve Grossman” – DJ Colin Curtis (UK dancefloor jazz legend)

The band have undertaken numerous UK tours and played festivals including EFG London Jazz Festival, Manchester Jazz Festival, Leeds Jazz Festival, Smugglers Festival and Solfest, and in 2024 were selected for Jazz North’s prestigious Northern Line scheme. New album “Vipertime & Moron Butler” sees the band in collaboration with post-punk band Moron Butler. Jazz is dialled down in favour of the acerbic attack of Gang Of Four, distorted punk-dub of The Pop Group and the motoric drive of Can. The voice and lyrics of Troy Osmond come to the forefront, his incantations interspersed with saxophone abstractions and fuelled by hard edged bass and drums.

Too odd for the punk shows and not weird enough for the experimental shows, Moron Butler have been leaving audiences confused and frustrated since 2021. Encompassing the DIY ethos of Minutemen and Hüsker Dü alongside the ramshackle charm of bands like The Replacements, they play songs that are “too short”, songs that “stop just as they get going” with lyrics that are “too downbeat” . These are the sort of reviews that Moron Butler have come to expect. It’s what pushes them on against the mundane.

Lyrically the band is inspired as much by the works of Cheever, Berryman and Steinbeck as by the street poetry of Billy Woods and Black Thought, with a soundtrack blending the sounds of Wire and The Fall shot through with Silver Apples, Joy Division and a peppering of US West Coast punk from across the decades. These are songs about history. The small quiet moments that have been forgotten, alongside the events that continue to haunt our thoughts. Three split 7 inch singles with three diverse and equally undefinable bands have done nothing to help Moron Butler slide easily into a category. Embrace the confusion.

New collaborative album “Vipertime & Moron Butler” was born out of a chaotic night in Hastings. A raucous double bill at infamous boozer The Jenny Lind led to an evening of cross pollinating line-ups, feedback, mosh pits and a breakneck rendition of TV Eye by The Stooges. By last orders local label Property Of The Lost had commissioned the album. Each track on the record features a combined line-up of the two bands. Moron Butler’s motoric kraut-punk is augmented by the sinewy abstractions of Ben Powling’s saxophone. Darren Tracey’s guitar infiltrates Vipertime’s double-drum rhythm section with the acerbic attack of Gang of Four and Sonic Youth. At the centre of the album are the voice and lyrics of Troy Osmond – monotone, insistent, heavy with references.

***IMPORTANT***
Wharf Chambers is a members’ club and you need to be a member, or guest of a member, in order to attend. To join, please visit our website. Membership costs £2 and requires a minimum of 48 hours to take effect