Dada-Avantgarde-Jazz ( Discover 1999)
After three years finally a new album by Blurt, following two less impressive records with a new pinnacle in the over-fifteen-yeasr-career of this phenomeon. The saxophone roars more brutal and free as ever before, the drum-grooves excite again and the guitar riffs which are so important in Blurt and which seemingly only a Steve Eagles can produce are exactly in the right places.
That Blurt are still around is a miracle: for years you hear nothing from them and then you read somewhere, by accident, they are on tour again. And after years of experiment - Ted Milton & The Blurt Big Band" - Ted Milton & Back To Normal" - Milton returns to the trio line-up. Not only that; this line-up is close to the original one, with Jake Milton on drums and Steve Eagles on guitar (*). That's all Blurt need to celebrate a compact "happening".
Milton's lyrics are equally dadaistic as his saxophone playing. Sometime subdued, sometimes screaming, slapping the audience an unsettling punch between the ears. Comparable to John Zorn, but just better. Drums and guitar lay down the basis on which Ted Milton can enfold.. And you have to give him this: he takes liberties whose existence so far nobody has ever dreamed of before. Always somewhere in the twilight zone between pretty and awfull.
The guitar plays the typical Blurt riffs, minimal in variation and altering in sound slightly. New is that the guitar gets more space here, allowing for occasional slide-guitar in the background.
Blurt are, like ever, difficult to pinpoint - since there is no comparable band out there - but they are a lot more atmospheric than on previous albums. "Celebrating The Bespoke Cell Of Little Ease" is a record which, in the contemporary flood of CD's, nobody will will forget, even after just hearing it once.
Unfortunately, it will not be easy to buy this CD since there is, as far as I know, no distribution deal. The best way to go is to buy it at one of their gigs. In the meantime I can recommend older albums like "Kenny Roger's Greatest Hit" or "The Body: Live" . Or get in touch with the label: Bahia, 1075 Budapest, Sip u.7.2. 9a Fax 36 1 11 59910
Ralf Haarmann, Discover - Musik & Mehr, Köln 1999
*= the line up actually is Jon Wygens and Paul Wigens.