Anthropods
Anthropods is a Vienna-based quintet founded by Mark Holub (drums) and featuring Irene Kepl (violin), Clemens Sainitzer (cello), Susanna Gartmayer (bass clarinet) and Jakob Gnigler (tenor saxophone). Formed in 2020, the band brings together five distinctive voices from Vienna’s jazz and improvised music scene, playing music that moves freely between composition, improvisation, heavy grooves, free jazz and more spacious, chamber-like textures.
Their self-titled debut was released by Discus Music in 2022, followed by „Abundant Shores“ on Vienna’s Klanggalerie in 2024. The latter consists of a continuous eight-part suite written by Holub and was followed by concerts in Austria and a UK tour with Sloth Racket. The band has appeared at festivals including the Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon, with their performance there subsequently broadcast on ORF Ö1.
Anthropods have received strong international press, with Jazzwise describing their debut as a “richly eclectic set of enjoyable and unclassifiable music celebrating the joy of collectivity”.
„And it is this European tradition, in which archaic folk music, kletzmer, roma, classical, and jazz musical traditions warp and blend that Anthropods (because the music just feels so much bigger than one member of the group) draw on to great effect.’“ Jazz Views
Susanna Gartmayer – bass clarinet
Jakob Gnigler – tenor saxophone
Irene Kepl – violin
Clemens Sainitzer – cello
Mark Holub – drums, compositions
Sloth Racket
Sloth Racket is a band of improvisers from the UK, with members based in Hastings, London, Stockport and Dundee. Baritone saxophone player Cath Roberts creates scores that form the skeleton of the music, and the band constructs a collective sound out of those pages in the moment. Since forming in 2015 they have toured regularly and appeared at numerous UK festivals. Their sixth studio album Arboreal was released on the Luminous label in 2025, alongside the birthday live album Ten Years of Live Sloths.
„Watching Sloth Racket perform is a thrilling experience, conveying a palpable sense that the musicians are navigating the scores by the seat of their pants, making real-time group decisions that sculpt the compositions into unique shapes each time they’re played. “ The Wire
Cath Roberts – baritone saxophone, compositions
Sam Andreae – alto saxophone
Anton Hunter – guitar
Seth Bennett / double bass
Johnny Hunter / drums
Advisory Board
Michael Kahr
Raymond MacDonald
Nikki Moran
Silviya Svejenova Velikova
Christopher Williams
Principal Investigator – Mark Holub
Drummer, composer and bandleader Mark Holub is originally from the US and now based in Vienna. He is best known as the bandleader and composer for Led Bib.
With Led Bib, he was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2009 (one of 12 albums of the year) and was also a winner of the Peter Whittingham Jazz Award in 2005. Led Bib have topped college radio charts across the US and Canada and have appeared live on television and radio across Europe, including the BBC, Channel 4, WDR, ORF and many others. They have released eight studio albums, most recently Hotel Pupik on Cuneiform Records in 2025, and have toured to some of the highest profile festivals in Europe including North Sea Jazz Festival, Moers Festival, Jazzfestival Berlin, London Jazz Festival and Saalfelden Jazz Festival.
Holub is also active in a number of other projects including leading Anthropods, who have released two albums alongside European touring, most recently Abundant Shores on Klanggalerie; Blueblut, a power trio with Pamelia Stickney – theremin and Chris Janka – guitar, who have toured across Europe, Japan and South America and whose third album was on the Bestenliste for the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik; Extempore, a Vienna-based improvising quartet whose album Dream of Frequencies was released by Klanggalerie in 2024; and Falb/Holub/Satzinger, a freely improvising sax trio from Vienna. As an improviser, Holub has recorded and performed with Colin Webster, Irene Kepl, Evan Parker, Joëlle Léandre, Sofia Salvo, Noah Punkt, Johanna Pärli, Vinicius Cajado, Werner Zangerle, Villy Paraskevopoulos, Carl Ludwig Hübsch, Viola Falb, Jan Roder, James Holden, Jan Kopinski, Bernd Satzinger and many others.
Alongside his work as a performer, Holub composes for dance, theatre and film. His commissioned work includes a live score to John Ford’s Three Bad Men with Blueblut, premiered at the Philharmonie Luxembourg and later presented by the Viennale and Wien Modern. He also works as a contemporary dance accompanist, most regularly at ImPulsTanz in Vienna, and has previously worked with companies including Michael Clark Company, Rambert Dance Company, English National Ballet and Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures.
Holub has a PhD in Creative Music Practice from the University of Edinburgh and has taught and led workshops in higher education and professional music contexts internationally. He is currently a Senior Postdoc at JAM MUSIC LAB in Vienna, where he leads the FWF-funded artistic research project What Are They Building In There?, investigating bandleading, group language and collective creativity in jazz and improvised music.