The Sweat Bees formed accidentally on 23/9/7, when five of us found ourselves in a room together with our instruments. The line up is open to guests and special appearances, but has now settled as an eight piece. Sometimes you have to work real hard to get something great; other times it just falls into your lap. As soon as we'd done it, we knew we were onto something special.
It's open shop stylistically, ranging from trad post-rock through soviet marches and country dances into electronically manipulated noise. We've vowed never to appear with a guitar, instead opting for violin and mandolin family instruments and keyboards.
The Bees partially grew out of informal jams at Marcus' place. Some of the members have also played with Tarana, and this was the common starting point for the first Sweaty jam. Ashley had been looking for a new direction for his solo electronica project Ibly Dy, and many of the musicological ideas from that have spilled over into the Bees. What had just been a remarkable one-off jam turned into a band after a Sieben gig at the Crucible, attended by all the Bees.
The Sweat Bees live debut was in early December 2007 on a bill with other Sheffield improvised bands Tarana and Einstein. Since then we've played a good few more gigs and made hours of recordings. The first Sweat Bees release will hopefully be available to everyone soon.
Any problems hearing our tunes then visit http:/www.virb.com/sweatbees for an alternative audio source.