Blast4tet - 2008 Sift

However, the work which can be heard on their latest releases often evinces a much freer and more improvisational new music. The complexity of their musicianship, as displayed in both their more structured compositions and in their improvisational mode, has always been at the forefront of the band's work - regardless of the various creative approaches they have evolved over the years. The various members are constantly active collaborating with other musicians such as Fred Frith, Chris Cutler, Pavel Fajt, Elliot Sharp, and Otomo Yoshide, to name just a few.*
Blast's music is dense with detail. It is intense and angular, powerful and elegant; galloping with unpredictable hair-pin changes. It displays the polyrhythmic complexity, the technical sophistication and precision of fine musicianship which are traditionally associated with progressive rock. Nonetheless, they exceed any traditional progressive classification as they venture along unexpected musical avenues regarding this genre. With many diverse creative leanings in tow, such as elements of improvisational counterpoint, their work moves into clearly avant territory, and can be more closely ascribed to avant-garde and free jazz influences.
Since 2000, they have been playing as a central fixed quartet [thus the current name, "Blast4tet,"] whose lineup is altered with various guest musicians depending on the requirements of the given musical project at hand. Currently they play as a quintet, a sextet, and in combination with a twelve piece chamber music ensemble next to the quartet version.
"With the quartet we work on music in which composition and improvisation are integrated as much as possible. To achieve this, we work on the development of new ways of notation and interplay. A way of playing in which time is used with an utmost flexibility and where the players are conductors at the same time. In the scores we make use of notation techniques such as graphical writing, polymetrics, free choice of parameters, etc. All that in order to reduce the harshness of transitions between the improvised and composed material, and to create a coherent sound. We add a new dimension by using electronics and electro-acoustics. The range of dynamics becomes wider and the tension between abstract and tonal music is more emphasized. Since we focus on extending the possibilities, the program is renewing itself all the time and no piece sounds the same twice."
Chris Cutler:
This is the seventh release(& second on ReRrecords) from this unique ensemble. Equally at home with the discipline of composition and the tightrope of improvisation Blast (now Blast 4tet) have evolved a fluid, pointillistic, unfathomable but transparent musical language that seamlessly integrates - over very short durations - highly complex writing and very free ranging improvisation, allowing the two languages to merge and combine into a new kind of logical exposition that makes sense but can't be reverse-engineered into its component parts. This is a music that lives through detail and exposition; neither resolving into composition, nor able properly to be understood as improvisation. In this respect Blast have solved a problem that has defeated many in the last 40 years