At next month's Manchester Jazz Festival the exhilarating new band Silence Blossoms, featuring saxophonist Sam Andrae from Trio Riot (responsible for some of the best free-jazz around this year), found here with bassist/guitarist Gus Loxbo and vocalist Hanna Olivegren, appear in a double bill at the Soup Kitchen with Space F!ght on 23 July. Patti Smith-like in their scalding intensity, revolutionary in the free-jazz heat hidden within the cauldron of their sound, poetic, caustic and vital, Silence Blossoms, part of the cutting edge Efpi label family of bands, take no prisoners. Songs include lyrics by Sarah Maguire, Andrae himself, Pascale Petit, Stevie Smith, Alice Oswald, Hanna Olivegren and Gus Loxbo. Listen to their single ‘Remembrance of an Open Wound’ from their eponymous debut album, above