PRJ036 - West Hill Blast Quartet Blast #2

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Tracklist:

  1. Domestic Goose Chase
  2. Record A Mammy
  3. Bumble Beam
  4. Patter Down And Winding Skills
  5. Lonesome Etchings
  6. Gumshun

Format: CD-R
Price: £7.00
Released: November 2014
75 Copies

Ron Caines: Alto, tenor & soprano saxophones, harmonica, melodica, whistle, percussion
Daniel Spicer: Bamboo saxophone, shenai, trumpet, recorder, whistles, vocal, melody harp, small percussion, bells, gong.
Gus Garside: Double bass
Andy Pyne: Drums


Reviews for Blast #2

The Quietus, January 2015

'Brighton free-jazzers West Hill Blast Quartet apply their lungs to a range of unconventional instruments on this second album: melodica, bamboo saxophone, shenai, bird whistle. Small percussion instruments add to the mix, taking the band's classic New Thing sound into the glistening textural environments associated with Art Ensemble Of Chicago or Brotherhood Of Breath's 'Night Poem'. Veteran UK jazz and improv saxophonist Ron Caines is on fine form, negotiating the the rhythm section of Gus Garside and Andy Pyne's open forms with an edgy lyricism. Bolide member and Wire scribe Daniel Spicer is the wild card, adding playful DIY/freak-folk elements with his rag-bag of small instruments. A terrific piece of underground British jazz. (Stewart Smith)'

the sunday experience, December 2014

'What strange chemical additives west hill blast quartet are on is clearly a subject matter up for debate though one things for certain they've a curable knack of terraforming sonic landscapes out of barren nothingness with kitchen sinks, variously assembled appliances and the odd penny whitle being thrown into the kooky soup for good measure. 'blast #2' out now via the wilfully un-hip foolproof project imprint is the Caines, Spicer, Garside and Pyne concocted second full length. Again circumventing the outer regions of the jazz sonic dictionary in so much as it's wildly freeform and removed of barriers, walls and parameters, its possessed of a playfulness so absent from its partner in crime Aeolipile's debut that rather than seeking to turn your headspace into mush is more content to send you on a surreal and zonked out trip into freakville weirdness. Yes of course there are reference markers that man Tubby Hayes looms large though scratch a little a let the blighter soak and permeate into your listening space and what you slowly begin to hear are elements of chamber jazz, native sounds, art pop and skronk along with a curt nodding to brand x and a whole heap of Bablicon (not least as on the rain swept noir of 'lonesome etchings' our favourite here – but shush don't tell the others) though it's on 'spake whackin'' were they appear to guided by the spirit of Goons musical meisters Max Geldray and the Ray Ellington quartet and dropping some serious Goonland / Michael Bentine lunacy with those imps Volcano the Bear cooking up the beard stroking groove. As appears to be the case with all things foolproof projects this comes in an ultra limited 75 only pressing with download copies for the turntsbles light among you. Smoking.'