Cathode profile picture

Cathode

About Me

Cathode is Steve Jefferis, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK.
“Special Measures”, Cathode’s debut album, was released by Expanding Records in 2004 following early releases on Static Caravan and 555 Records. The album was acclaimed for its winning combination of precision-glitch electronics and a warm melodic sensibility, gaining the judgement of “first class” from John Peel and neatly summed up by Metro as “a moody, melodic soundscape of carefully controlled clicks, beats and bleeps, producing a crescendo of beautifully blended electronic rhythms ... a sound as emotive as it is creative”.
Second album “Sparkle Plenty” finds Cathode coupling the precision and warmth of the debut with a richer sonic palette – for instance, the skittering improv percussion of “Dream Feeder”, the strings, flutes and piano of “Without Memory Or Desire”, or the battered acoustic guitar and ticking clocks of “Nightly Builds”. Centrepiece of the album is “Structure Hunger”, a juddering serialist-krautrock wonder, which has its origins in a collaborative project with film-maker Adam Finlay at Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema to provide new soundtracks to a batch of vintage colour-saturated summertime movies.
Steve's other band is Warm Digits , a krautrock/guitar-noise/electronics/free-improvisation collaboration with the Matinee Orchestra’s Andrew Hodson.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 03/02/2006
Band Website: www.cathode.org.uk
Band Members: Steve Jefferis; (collaborators: Caroline Thorp, Andrew Hodson, Caro Snatch)
Influences: my bloody valentine, alva noto, ultra vivid scene, boards of canada, pan sonic
Sounds Like:

Record Label: Expanding Records / Static Caravan / Distraction
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

OUSEBURN BOATHOUSE IMPROV LIVE SET video & audio now available

Hello folks. On 9th May 2009 Cathode played an improvised live set at the Ouseburn Boathouse in Newcastle, at the kind behest of estimable headliners Lanterns On The Lake. This was experimental in t...
Posted by on Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:44:00 GMT

Sparkle Plenty - national release date 20 April

Sparkle Plenty, the second Cathode album, will finally have its national release (in sparkling digipak, or via download) on 20th April 2009 through Expanding Records.Sparkle Plenty finds Cathode cou...
Posted by on Fri, 20 Mar 2009 10:40:00 GMT

"Plunge" - new animated short with Cathode soundtrack

Ross Phillips has made a sweet short animation, "Plunge", using Cathode's "Chad Valley" as the soundtrack.  You can see it and download it here. The film is commissioned as part of Northern Film & Med...
Posted by on Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:05:00 GMT

cathode remix for d_rradio available for free download from Distraction Records

.. --> _filtered {font-family:Verdana;panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;} p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;font-fami ly:"Times New Roman";} ...
Posted by on Sat, 13 Sep 2008 09:16:00 GMT

"sparkle plenty" now available in alt.vinyl

for those of you in sunny newcastle upon tyne, the CD "sparkle plenty" is now available for £7.99 in the finest record shop in the north east - alt.vinyl, thornton st, NE1 4AW. As we're now a bit tire...
Posted by on Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:46:00 GMT

warm digits on myspace!

Warm Digits - the provisional wing of Cathode, in collaboration with the Matinee Orchestra's Andrew Hodson - have finally got round to setting up a myspace site:myspace.com/warmdigitsYou can hear exce...
Posted by on Thu, 11 Sep 2008 13:55:00 GMT

thank you folks

Hearty thanks to everyone who came to the album launch gig on Thursday at the Cumberland Arms.  I can't really say how overwhelmed i felt by folks' reaction to the songs on the new record that ha...
Posted by on Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:48:00 GMT

Cathode on YouTube!

Not in person, obviously - I've got far better things to do than bother you with my grizzled mug.  But I've set up a "channel" (as is the modern parlance) with some Cathode videos that you may ca...
Posted by on Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:35:00 GMT

New Album "Sparkle Plenty" - coming soon

The second Cathode album is *finished* and will be released during the summer of 2008 on Expanding Records.  Watch this space for further news - we *can* tell you the album is solidly built on th...
Posted by on Fri, 23 May 2008 00:30:00 GMT

cathode news, june 2006 - new releases & film screenings

Lots of activity chez Cathode this month, including, extraordinarily, some new releases as interim teasers before some full-blown Expanding Records action later in the year.  Deep breath the...
Posted by on Thu, 01 Jun 2006 15:36:00 GMT