Cuneiform
1999
A Sophisticated Face
About This Album
Blast's two preceding Cuneiform albums, Wire Stitched Ears and Stringy Rugs, admirably extended the best of '70s-era progressive music traditions into the '90s, demonstrating that artistically valid statements could still be made in the genre a quarter century after its heyday. While its preceding releases have much to recommend them, the Dutch ensemble ups the ante significantly with A Sophisticated Face. Five guest artists join the band this time: percussionist Rob Snijders and marimbist Cor Links from Stringy Rugs, as well as former X-Legged Sally trumpeter/flugelhornist Bart Maris, violinist Jan Erik van Regteren-Altena, and Michiel Weidner on cello and cymbalom. This instrumentation, particularly the strings and the Eastern European-flavored cymbalom (related to the hammer dulcimer), give Blast a sound that is much closer to a contemporary chamber ensemble than avant rock band. The group's composers are more than up to the challenges presented by the extended lineup, and strains of modern classical music are now fully integrated with Blast's rock and creative improvisational leanings.

The ensemble moves into extended-form, episodic territory with the guitarist's "Visceral Ooze.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,7 and 10)

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