St. Barbe announces collaboration with Mercury-shortlisted artist corto.alto
PINCH
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‘Pinch’ is the highly-anticipated collaboration between genre-bending trio St. Barbe and multi-instrumentalist and producer corto.alto (a.k.a Liam Shortall), whose debut album Bad With Names was shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize in 2024. The track is the second of three singles to be released in the build up to St. Barbe’s second E.P Shoal, scheduled for release in late 2025.
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As mutual fans, St. Barbe and corto.alto began working on a track together in 2024, developing it remotely through a series of demos and Zoom calls. This collaboration culminated in the recording of the horns at Liam's home studio in Glasgow with additional guitar, bass and drums being tracked by St. Barbe in London. The result is a melting pot of influences from the Glasgow and London jazz scenes, seamlessly blending jazz, hip-hop, rock and electronica and featuring a raucous, punk-infused saxophone solo by Harry Weir. ​
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​The collaboration with corto.alto represents the band's most high-profile partnership to date, offering an exciting opportunity to reach new audiences and solidify their growing reputation on the UK jazz scene.
Formed in 2021, St. Barbe released their self-produced EP Shapeless, earning placements on Spotify's jazz playlists and a feature in Guitar Magazine. They supported guitarist Mike Stern at London's Jazz Cafe in July 2022, followed by their own UK tour with performances in Manchester, Nottingham, and Bristol, and a debut at Cheltenham Jazz Festival. Since the subsequent release of singles ‘Tellicherry’ and ‘Noumena’, they have amassed over half a million streams, solidifying their growing reputation as a band whose impossible-to-pin-down sound is on a trajectory all of its own.
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"Injecting their brand of jazz with a healthy shot of alternative rock, St. Barbe deliver a slick, fresh take on the genre that brings it straight into the twenty-first century.”
- Guitar.com
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"This band opened for us last night in London and they were unbelievable"
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- Dennis Chambers (Mike Stern Band, Santana, Steely Dan)