RED SNAPPER - LIVE TOUR 2025

Red Snapper are proud to announce new UK live dates in March 2025, celebrating new releases on Lo Recordings and also 30 years of ‘Reeled and Skinned’, their first album on the legendary Warp Records.

Live line up:

Ali Friend – Bass, Vocals, Gato Drum.
Rich Thair – Drums.
Tara Cunningham – Guitar and vocals.
Tom Challenger – Saxophone, Clarinet and Keyboards.

In November 2024 Red Snapper release the ‘Tight Chest’ EP featuring LA producer David Harrow via Lo Recordings.

A follow up EP featuring the current live line up will be released in 2025 which, combined with the tracks from 'Tight Chest', will form the full vinyl album ‘Barb and Feather’.

Warp records will also be concurrently releasing a unique limited vinyl version of ‘Reeled and Skinned’, the band's acclaimed first outing for the label from back in 1995.

Following the success of their album ‘Everybody Is Somebody’ in 2022, Red Snapper released ‘Live at The Moth Club' (2023), which was a celebration of the band’s famed, worldwide live performances, spanning 3 decades, and recorded at a sell-out show at the end of their 2022 live tour.

The album demonstrates the band’s ability to constantly rework and update new and classic tracks, keeping them impassioned, experimental and as relevant as ever.

‘Live at The Moth Club’ featured the original founder members and rhythm section, Rich Thair (Drums), Ali Friend (Double Bass, Vocals, Gato Drum).

They were joined by their current live line up of Tom Challenger (Sax, Clarinet and Keyboards), Tara Cunningham (Guitar, Vocals), JamesWard- Sired (Trombone) and Christian Mock (Front of House sound Engineer), and also featured Natty Wylah on Vocals.

Notorious for casting convention aside, and remaining one of the UK’s most forward thinking and rule-breaking live bands, Red Snapper embrace a unique blend of live, euphoric Afro-Jazz, Future Funk, Dub, dark Hip-Hop, all peppered with trademark fragile soundscapes.

Formed in 1994, drummer - Rich Thair, double bassist - Ali Friend and guitarist - David Ayers, released three EPs on Rich Thair and Dean Thatcher’s label Flaw Recordings, with the first EP ‘Snapper’ featuring Beth Orton on vocals.

During the initial years the band released the sonically pioneering albums 'Reeled and Skinned', 'Prince Blimey', 'Making Bones' and 'Our Aim Is To Satisfy' (Warp records), touring globally and supporting the likes of Massive Attack, Bjork, The Prodigy, De La Soul and The Fugees. They also acquired a reputation for innovative and expansive remixing – reworking tunes by Trouble Funk, David Holmes, Sabres of Paradise, Garbage, Lamb, S-Express, and Edwyn Collins amongst others.

After a break, in 2003 the band released the eponymous ‘Red Snapper’ and then 'A Pale Blue Dot' on Lo Recordings, at which point Tom Challenger joined on Saxophone and Clarinet.

The album ‘Key’ was released on V2 Records in 2011 and featured vocals by Eliza Carthy and Gavin Clarke (Clayhill/Unkle).

In 2013 Red Snapper composed a new soundtrack to the 1970’s Senegalese, psychedelic road movie ‘Touki Bouki’ which had been restored by Martin Scorsese. The band toured Europe performing the soundtrack live to the film, culminating in the celebrated sell-out show at The Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s Southbank. 

In 2014 the album ‘Hyena’ was released on Lo Recordings featuring all the music from their original film score.

In 2016 Red Snapper toured a performance of the full 1996 album ‘Prince Blimey’ for the first time ever to mark its 20th anniversary. It was incredibly well received as the album was recognized as being ground-breaking at the time but is still very musically relevant today.

In 2019 their track 'Spikey', from the V2 released album ‘Key’ was featured on the soundtrack for 'El Camino', the Netflix 'Breaking Bad' film directed by Vince Gilligan.

The long awaited album ‘Everybody Is Somebody’, released in 2022, was considered by many as Red Snapper’s best work since the 90s, featuring a wealth of guests and notably MC Natty Wylah, who featured on the single ‘The Warp and The Weft’. 

With another busy year on the horizon, Red Snapper will be taking their explosive and passionate live set on the road once again in 2025.

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