- Quartet Diminished: Deerand
(2024, cd, USA, moonjune records)
Quartet Diminished was established in Iran in 2013 by guitarist Ehsan Sadigh. This is their fourth album. Their music is stylistically diverse, drawing freely from contemporary jazz, art rock, and avant-garde music. The membership has been relatively stable. Sadigh (electric guitar) has had bandmates Soheil Peyghambar (woodwinds), Mazyar Younessi (piano, voice), and Rouzbeh Fadavi (drums) on most of the group’s albums.
The instrumentation suggests many possibilities, including chamber jazz, Rock In Opposition-style art rock, and free improvisation, and the compositions have often been credited to Sadigh. But here the music is credited to the entire band, just as it was on the previous album. The practice of adding players from outside the quartet to the sessions was also repeated: the personnel includes bass guitarist/Chapman stick bassist Tony Levin, and touch guitarist Markus Reuter–who are also given co-composer credits. It makes for a bigger sound–the quartet is effectively a sextet most of the time–and clearly, the situation was an inspiration for all of the players.
The music that's presented on "Deerand" is quite diverse. Some parts sound like improvised soundscapes while other parts seem to have been written out for the entire ensemble.
Unfamiliar with their previous albums, this was a fine introduction.
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