Waldo's Gift

Having forged themselves as a name to remember, and electrifying new force in the new wave of UK Experimental music, Bristol trio Waldo’s Gift announce their debut album ‘Malcolm's Law’ for release 22nd January 2025 via fellow Bristolian Ishmael Ensemble’s label Severn Songs. Following a string of early releases lauded by tastemakers across BBC 6Music and BBC Radio 1, ‘Malcolm's Law’ captures the story of their unusual beginnings, their weekly residency at Bristol venue The Gallimaufry where they built a cult following with their intense & bizarre performances.
The LP announcement comes with the release of brash, technicolour lead single ‘Candifloss.’ “We wanted to write something really sickly sweet” claims drummer James Vine, who performs alongside bassist Harry Stoneham and guitarist Alun Elliot-Williams. The melody for ‘Candifloss’ emerged from an improvised performance (as all of their songs do) following the lockdowns, when it felt as though a seismic shift had occurred within the band. “That was the first thing we banked for a potential album. We thought, how can we make this the newest, most exciting version of us possible?”

‘Malcolm's Law’ is a sizzling, maximalist, impossibly complex guitar record. While Waldo’s Gift have been associated with the UK jazz explosion, mainly owing to their focus on improvisation, within their full-length offering there are unmistakable shades of post-rock, prog-metal, and the more intense ends of Squarepusher or Aphex Twin. “We essentially Trojan-horse metal into jazz venues,” Vine laughs. Unbelievably, every track is a single live performance, recorded with no overdubs or extras. “We’ve tried to multi-track stuff, but it doesn’t sound like us,” he says. “To sound like us is to be a sweaty, chaotic mess, on the precipice of falling apart. We’re all on the limit of what we can physically play, and that’s where the fun comes from.”
The album is, in many ways, a distillation of their origins at The Gallimaufry: a venue which was becoming a hub for Bristol’s leftfield music, which receives a head-nod on album track ‘The Galli’. Back in 2017, the venue owner told Vine he was looking for a band to play Wednesday nights, leading him to recruit new friend Elliott-Williams and Elliott-William’s friend Stoneham (who Vine only met the day before their first show). From 2017 to 2020, they played every week – their intense, heavily improvised sets gaining them a cult-following. “There were people that would come every Wednesday, and just be there for the chaos. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of screaming – a lot of people jumping and pushing each other around,” Vine says. “We really did feel like a bit of a family.”
Most songs on Malcolm's Law were made by improvising around one idea which cropped up during a live show (they record everything). One track is a purely improvised performance – simply titled ‘This One Is Improvised’. For this one, Vine explains, “we closed the curtains, invited a few people to the studio, had a few beers, and did a sort of mini gig in the studio.” The album’s emotional palette also takes its cue from their live shows. “You start off and it’s a bit anxious or unnerving, then you get to this peak of feeling – whether it’s existential crisis, or euphoria – then there’s this gentle transition back to reality,” Vine says. From the ecstatic joy of ‘Candifloss’ to the angst of title-track ‘Malcolm's Law’, “all of the tunes fall somewhere on that.” A sense of naïve playfulness is also important to the band, who describe their music in a very visual language. On making ‘Jellyfish’, Vine recalls “we’re egging each other on to write the tune like: ‘we’re jellyfish! And we’re in the ocean! And we’ve gone super deep!’ It’s all this childish excitement.” In the course of this role-playing, ‘Malcolm’s Law’ showcases a few different sides to the group: “the fun, party Waldi, the weird, dark, club Waldi,” (the band call themselves ‘Waldi’), and the early sound referenced in ‘Classic Waldi Anthem.’ “If you came and saw us in 2018, first year of our career, chances are it'd sound like that.”

As time moved on, the band’s complex sound was also influenced by their reworking of famous artists’ catalogues during their residency. “We did Radiohead, ABBA, Queen, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher,” Vine lists, pulling in new audiences who would either “be pissed off we’d butchered these songs” or become new regulars. Their bewildering live rework of Aphex Twin’s ‘Vordhosbn’ won a fan in Mary Anne Hobbs, who played it on BBC6 Music. Meanwhile, their 2019 ‘Improvisations’ EP (recorded live at their Gallimaufry residency) gained another influential supporter in Gilles Peterson – naming them as a ‘One To Watch’ for 2020. Prevented by the lockdowns from touring, they continued building fans regardless with their first studio EP ‘The Hut’, live-streamed shows, and the single ‘Flowerbed’ which gained support from BBC Radio 1. As the lockdowns eased, this all led to major festival sets including Glastonbury, We Out Here and Copenhagen Jazz Festival, as well as inclusion in BBC 4’s documentary ‘Spitting Fire’ as one of UK Jazz’s brightest new lights.