Music / Jazz
Worming their way up
Ah, 2014! A blissful time when we hardly knew words like ‘pandemic’. Pharrell Williams’ Happy topped the charts, 12 Years a Slave won the Oscars and every ten-year-old learned to Let It Go thanks to Frozen.
Worm Disco’s Jake Worm remembers that year for other reasons, however: “Nathan wanted to do a party and he found Jackson so the first one was without me! There’s been a hundred or so Worm Disco parties since then with all of us involved: I was there three weeks later.”
Fast forward to 2024 and the three Worms (pictured above: Jake, Nathan, Jackson) are still very much in action, with an established record label alongside their programme of live events and party nights.
is needed now More than ever
November sees them round off their tenth anniversary year with three hot new releases and a sold-out gig at St Mary Redcliffe with UK jazz superstar Shabaka Hutchings.
The gig is something of a return to his roots for Jake who attended St Mary Redcliffe School at a time when he and Jackson had already found each other to be kindred spirits: “Me and Jackson, we’ve always had a passion for Brazilian music. We met when we were about 14 playing samba-reggae in Bristol and our friendship was built around the music from the start.
“Aside from the Worm project we’ve always been bringing Brazilian culture to Bristol as a big part of our life … around the time the we began Worm Disco, me and Jackson started a community drumming and dancing group linked to maracatu which comes from Recife, Pernambucu. Ever since then we’ve gone back to Brazil pretty much every year for Carnival, to drink from the font.”
Inevitably those annual visits have led to strong connections with the contemporary Brazilian music scene and so when the remarkable performer/composer Iara Renno was looking for a record label outside Brazil Worm Discs was soon in the frame.
Jake says they didn’t take much persuading: “She’s amazing – a force of nature! She really knows exactly what she’s doing. She’s worked with loads of really amazing artists – on her album Oriki there’s a lot of modern Brazilian artists but also (uncredited) many of the top musicians in Brazil.”
The first fruits of their collaboration – Iara’s single Iroko (Axé que vem do Pé) is released on November 14 with plans of more to follow and hopes – subject to visas and funding – to maybe tour her famously exciting live show.
Other new Worm Disc releases come from closer to home, starting with Afro-Latin experimentalists Dundundun’s third EP Connected featuring Marie Lister’s cool vocals and an audacious reworking of a Miles Davis classic (released November 13).
And then well-loved groovers Snazzback drop new EP Within and Without on November 20. It’s a high production set featuring a range of vocalists and MCs including Rider Shafique’s powerfully laconic contribution As The World Around Me Burns.
With the Shabaka gig rounding off the month on November 18, it’s maybe unsurprising that the Worms are hoping to take things easy for a while after December.
“We’re having a well deserved pause!” Jake explains. “I’m going to Brazil for an extended stay and Jackson’s been very busy doing tour management stuff so we’re going to reassess what we’re going to do. It’s not that nothing’s going to happen but we’re definitely having a break.”
Well deserved indeed – and looking back even Jake is impressed with what they’ve done since 2014: “I think we’ve achieved a hell of a lot over the last ten years. It’s almost unbelievable the number of gigs we’ve done, the places we’ve played at – so we’re very happy with everything so far.”
Asked what stands out for him, he reflects for a moment: “I really enjoyed the first ones we did where we did everything – like at People’s Republic of Stokes Croft, 2016. We did all the food, made cocktails, decorated the whole space and did film screenings. Crazy hard work!
“And the all-dayers at Arbor Ales when people brought their kids. There’s a super-lovely energy with kids because it adds a nice lightness to the event. Sometimes dance floors can take themselves a bit too seriously and kids are a really good remedy to that.
“And doing the Wormhole at Glastonbury was a pretty special weekend of course.”
Rounding off the anniversary year with Shabaka Hutchings has special resonance for the Worms as they booked his former band The Comet Is Coming long before they were Mercury-nominated.
But he’s lately renounced that heavy grooving saxophone sound, instead playing traditional flutes alongside harpists. It’s a more contemplative, almost classical combination that should thrive in the acoustic and atmosphere of the big church space.
Quite a contrast with the hectic hedonism of a Worm Disco party, but Jake is happy with that nonetheless: “It’ll be special – a well-curated evening of high entertainment instead of something that’s like a beautiful chaos.
“I love the chaos that we’ve before but this feels more like doing something nice and smooth with an artist who’s perhaps at the peak of his field. It’s a new beginning for him, too, so it’s poignant that we’re thinking about new horizons for us and he’s in that position as well: that’s quite poetic I think.”
Main image: Worm Disco
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