A spontaneous free improvisation in an old post office squatted by the group in the Autumn of 1999 signalled the beginning of their work. It remains unclear who the participants were – apart from members of Baby, several ‘audience’ participated.
The artists went on to occupy several buildings, a neglected village hall, disused commercial properties, starlit hillsides for the night – creating art out of their environments, events mixing composed and improvised elements.
In 2002 a transmitter on the roof of a former shop in Air St. Brighton, where the group had held a Halloween event, began sending out their audio via a local pirate radio network. Here the group’s practice of improvising without reference to structure has led to the latter description ‘acoustic noise,’ although in fact their radio also includes electronics and samples, artificial intelligence, spoken word and harmonic and melodic elements being improvised. Guesting some of Brighton’s finest ‘out there’, the search is still on for anything audio that can be adlibbed.
While early audiences occasionally danced when the group mixed vinyl into their improvisation , it wasn’t until 2003 that an audience member began doing contemporary dance. Baby have since continued working with dancers.
2004 was the year the band started guesting ‘folk’ vocalists including Mary Hampton and Kristen Mclement.
In May 2006 the ensemble premiered their noise piece ‘my tinnitus’ in the Brighton festival. Essentially the work is the installation of a high pitched sine wave of duration, a minimum three days, with visual and dance representations, where the musicians ‘attempt to create music out of what might be disturbance’.
After some debate about the validity of trying to capture music, 2006 was also the year the band made their first release. ‘Vole radio 1’, an ep originally available on 3inch cds, comprises a variety of improvisations from early radio shows.
In 2008 the group began working with theatre and film director Rikki Tarascas. At first performing a largely improvised comedy piece, the group later went on to work with Rikki on new short stories by cult sci-fi author Jeff Noon culminating in live performance/readings with the group composing for and improvising with the texts.
In 2009 the group started making and editing short films and video artand doing live soundtrack performances.
Their debut album ‘sea shells listening’ comprised a mixture of composed and improvised elements recorded in various locations around Brighton. Difficult to categorize, with plenty of contrast, the deliberation of letting style emerge naturally from attempts to create original work makes for an oddly cohesive journey. It was released in November 2009, and was met with a lot of nice reviews.
In 2010 the group focused into it’s quartet to record improvisations. An album of these recordings ‘nomenclature’ was eventually released in 2016.
Baby moved by a very busy stretch of the A12 road in east London in 2012 and subsequently created ‘Near Wanstonia’- an album and photographic exhibition launched in December of that year. Then asked to do a spoken word version, – ‘Near Wanstonia 2’ was eventually released in 2021 with rumor of a film to complete the trilogy.
2020, The album ‘ birds flew out of my mouth (at the dentist’s) ‘ and it’s companion piece- ‘ the appointment ‘ were launched.
In 2021 Baby released ‘ Baby lives!’ – a live album compiled from gigs recorded in Brighton and London. That year also saw the release of ‘Baby, guide du debutant’ an E.P length compilation, intended as a kind of quick start for the uninitiated.
Baby continues to perform, mostly in the street around the old Tregor region of northern Brittany in france. There is also the ongoing photographic project ‘Trepics’ which is exhibited variously around that part of the world.
