Emergence Collective are one of Sheffield’s most distinctive and quietly radical musical forces. Every performance they give and every recording they make is based entirely upon improvisation. With nothing pre-determined, the ensemble of around 40 musicians never play the same gig twice.
Drawing from folk, classical, jazz, electronic and experimental backgrounds, they create improvised soundscapes, gently lit with moments of serene softness and quietly hypnotic grooves. That’s all evident on their latest record, Swimming in the Early Hours, which will be released on Sheffield’s Redundant Span Records with a celebratory performance at Highfield Trinity Church on 28 November 2025.
What began as informal jams between friends has gradually expanded into an open, community-driven project that’s seen Emergence Collective perform in unique venues across the city and take on increasingly ambitious recording projects. Ahead of their album launch show, we spoke to them about their unique approach to making music, and how Sheffield has guided and inspired them along the way.
Can you tell us about how Emergence Collective first came together? What were some of the musical ideas or values that bonded you early on?
Emergence Collective started with a few informal jams between Juliana, Rob, Ben Gaunt and Tim Knowles. Rob later invited dulcimer player Zebedee C. Budworth to join, and when Covid hit, the four of us (Juliana, Rob, Zeb and Tim) continued playing together in Rob’s back garden. Those early sessions were where our pattern-based approach to improvisation began to take shape.
In 2021, we opened the sessions to anyone we thought might be interested. These open jams became the foundation of what we do today. The recordings from our very first gig as a large group – a 10-piece completely improvised performance at the Abbeydale Picture House Fly Tower – became our first album (Fly Tower, Redundant Span Records) and we realised we’d created something that wasn’t just fun for us, but that people wanted to listen to!
Since then, we’ve continued performing gigs, recording albums and running workshops to explore and share our creative process. Minimalism is the thread that connects all of us and shapes our shared musical language, but our wider musical backgrounds in folk, early music, classical, jazz, electronic and experimental music naturally feed into the sound as well.
Jemma Freese came on board as a director in 2025 after performing with us for several years. She’s already steering the project in a fresh creative direction, drawing on her background in jazz scatting, konokol, and avant-garde improvisation. She also named the tracks, giving this album a more poetic feel than our earlier releases.
From the beginning, we bonded over a shared approach to improvisation that is rooted in listening, leaving space, and building a collective texture. Creating music together in this way, rather than focusing on individual showmanship, became the foundation of our collaboration and continues to guide everything we do.
How has Sheffield – its people, venues, artistic community and history of DIY creativity – influenced Emergence Collective?
The sense of community in Sheffield is incredible. It’s often a city left out on the touring circuits, meaning that if you want something to happen you have to make it happen. Current DIY spaces like the Lughole, Hatch, Gut Level and Delicious Clam, as well as microvenues such as Bishops’ House and the Samuel Worth Chapel, are real labours of love, and it shows at each of the shows you attend there.
Each one offers its own unique flavour, a place to explore and experiment, each one its own community nurturing different scenes, a quality that is unique to Sheffield. The sense of community extends to the amount of collaboration that goes on – it’s not a competitive city, it celebrates the successes of the people fortunate enough to live here.
We’re an unusual group, and so don’t often play at the usual kinds of venues a band might play. The first gig at the Abbeydale Picture House Fly Tower was put on ourselves, by reaching out to Mark Riddington who was managing it at the time. The same with our promenade gig at Bishops’ House – four members of the group in each of the four rooms, with the audience invited to experience the gig however they want. We’d reached out to Paul who puts on the gigs there and he was more than happy to run with the idea! The spirit of community, and of getting out there and Doing It Yourself, is what makes Sheffield such an awesome city.
We run a session in the Gardeners Rest, which is a co-op owned pub – another example of the people of the city coming together to make a change. The Tramlines Fringe happenings are also phenomenal – there was one year the Lughole lot brought a generator to the skate bowl at Meersbrook Park, and watching kids on scooters do tricks while Ratcage and Flex shouted out their lungs was an experience not to be forgotten.
There are around 40 people involved in Emergence Collective, and our label (Redundant Span – James used to run the Tye-Die Tapes label and venue before it was demolished) is Sheffield-based. The artwork was handled by Roanna Wells (also Sheffield-based) and our t-shirts are printed in Sheffield. It’s so important to the project to keep everything as local as possible – channeling the DIY ethic of everyone coming together to make something beautiful happen. When Fly Tower was released a micro-run of records was made by Doitthissen, who’s been an integral part of the Sheffield scene for decades!
