Originally salvaged from the murky waters of the Leeds house party scene in the early 2000s, Ian Beetlestone & the Drowning Rats didn’t surface again until the mid 2010s in London’s similarly seedy King’s Cross. Clinging to the flotsam left behind when Tom Waits, Nina Simone, Jaques Brel and the Shangri-Las were recovered from the wreck, the Rats remain to be rescued.

While they wait, they offer their unique combination of ratty jazz, drowned pop, magic, mystery, darkness and light to the capricious twin deities of love and song with ever pleading and desperate eyes.

The Rats are:

Ian Beetlestone – piano & vocals
Tom Fry – double bass & vocals
Dom Coles – drums & vocals
George Simmonds – trombone & vocals
Louis Schultz-Wiremu – saxophone