"...a singer who can take the audience by the hand and lead them along the weird path between atmospherics and surreal humor... A witch with a few home-brewed spells and a ray gun." -(Resonance)
""Variously quaint and cutting, charming and provocative, and utterly musical and engaging." -(Option)
"has been a central figure in the British improvising scene for over thirty years working with the likes of Derek Bailey, Evan Parker and Han Bennink, ...one of the most consistently imaginative and creative musicians in Europe." -(Discogs)
A former member of Minnow, and Ticklish (with Kev Hopper, Phil Durrant and Rob Flint) and currently a member of Lost Robots, Suggestion Box and Blackheath Morris Men, Sanderson is a "Morris dancing, atheist humanist, promoter, a prolific crank-bashing poster and unique musician" - (Kev Hopper) and a "Toy Rattling Maniac" - (Time Out)
Los Angeles based experimental vocalist and toy player met up with the two London based improvisers and toy players Steve Beresford and Richard Sanderson at the Copenhagen Festival of Experimental Music in 1999.
Since then the international trio have met to play wherever possible, and have performed at many experimental music events, including the London Musicians' Collective festival of Experimental Music in 2000 and the Berlin Jazz Festival in 2003.
Their music is playful and yet serious, as indicated by their choice of instruments- all play a selection of childrens toys, and the men augment them them with live electronics and samplers. Anna's extraordinary voice underlines the human qualities of the music, by communicating directly in an invented language of her own.
"The festival is brought to a close with a performance which recapitulates the aim of the event - Anna Homler, Steve Beresford and Richard Sanderson, arranged behind a long table-load of toys, electronics, kipple of all kinds made to produce work which veers from the whimsically obtuse to the eccentrically enlivening. Their set takes on moments of silliness, and then turns them into art, pure and simple. When Homler sings, it makes connections that the unaided instruments and junk couldn't adequately explore on their own, and the balance between noisy chaos of a lo-tech kind, the cut-up potential of the electronics and human vocal extemporisation makes for a fitting slowdown into the drizzling night"
- "Tango Mongo" at the LMC Festival 2000
"The American singer Anna Homler, the well-tried activist of the English improvising scene Steve Beresford and the all-round man and ranting musician Richard Sanderson take fun in music seriously. Since having performed at the Copenhagen International Experimental Music Festival in 1999 as a trio for the first time playing with sound emitting objects and toy instruments they have continually increased their baubles. All three musicians have a totally different approach to their toy-object-music. Anna Homler utilizes her voice like an electronic instrument. As an element of further deception she developed her own language which she garnishes musically with squeaky toys and other childlike articles thereby caricaturing them. Steve Beresford having accomplished infantile genius escapades in the band The Melody Four and Richard Sanderson both expose their toy collection in a cheeky manner to every manipulation imaginable. This dense, complex music of subtle humour is an emotional upheaval but seriously funny nevertheless intriguing and touching at the same time." - Wolf Kampman at the Berlin Jazz Festival 2003
One of the highlights of the Vortex London Jazz Festival – TIME OUT
Featuring Fyfe Dangerfield (from Guillemots), Gannets posit an alternative jazz history in which 30's swing developed straight into a combined form of the free jazz and fusion movements, without any of the intervening decades.
Fyfe Dangerfield - keyboards + electronics
Alex J Ward - clarinet
Christopher Cundy - bass clarinet
Dominic Lash - double bass
Steve Noble - drums
