Blowpipe

Bio:

Blowpipe blends jazz and electronica, drawing on influences from Miles Davis to Pigbag. A unique sound, it has received wide acclaim. Over coming months Blowpipe tracks old and new will be posted here. The selection will be changed regularly - so keep coming back to hear different tunes..........Here is a selection of Blowpipe press.........."sophisticated, thought out and brilliantly executed new music that has genuinely excited me...very fine" - DJ.........."this is the type of groove explosion that every jazz-funk and acid jazz creation tried desperately to induce in the early 1990s. Few came this close to the holy grail of groove...Miles himself would've had to concede this is just breathtaking" - Making Music.........."21st century chamber music, reminiscent of Miles Davis at his most seductive - bliss" - Birmingham Post.........."The quartet's virtuosity lies as much in their juxtapositioning and mixing of edits with live playing as in the more obvious displays of trumpet and saxophone throughout. Neither the electronic nor the more conventional jazz elements are mere embellishment; Blowpipe's success is to incorporate them into a framework where they coexist as essential ingredients" - Wire.........."the genuine article. A jazz influenced electronic group. No posturing, no wearing your record collection on your sleeve, and most amazingly no sampling!" - Jockey Slut.........."If Blowpipe were a colour, they'd be ice blue...you cant escape their way of shaping a deliciously hazy atmosphereIts a light headed fusion, a different kind of trance...Music that forges ahead takes from any source and doesnt need a name to hang it on. Blowpipe make jazz accessible to languid groovers, impel rock minds to work harder, and fashion a lop sided dance music that probes while shuffling along on its sidethe warmth of the trumpet and clarinet send these tunes soaring towards the heights of incomprehensible ecstasy. Its melody, godammit!...Best of all, this aint Chicago or Milan, its London. Not preening and posing, but blowing genres out of the water, drawing on and pulling together quite disparate elements. What's also exciting is that, when you force the issue, this is pop music like it or not. Blowpipe, take a bow." - Melody Maker.........."This is what acid jazz could've been if it had been motivated by jazz rather than a deep desire to appear in liqueur adverts...Blowpipe are grasping at music far beyond simple genre; inhaling air and transmuting it via both electronics and manual valves into something new...This is breath-driven futurism...Blowpipe aim and - puff - hit the mark" - Misfit City.......... The nucleus of Blowpipe is father and son team Robin and Andrew Blick.......... Andrew plays trumpet and programmes. Currently he is also a member of One More Grain. His main influences are 1970s-era Miles Davis; post-punk (A Certain Ratio, Konk, Pigbag etc.); and electronic music (Fourtet, Manitoba/Caribou, Boards of Canada etc.). Andrew has released music as a member of Quint; Skree; and the Food/Parlophone top-40 act Octopus. He co-wrote part of the EP released on the Detroit techno label Shockwave (run by Underground Resistance) by Patrick Mosley, under the name of Overmow. Andrew has appeared on recordings by Grooverider (on the Mysteries of Funk album) Solex; Cinerama (David Gedge of the Wedding Present's project); Moonshake; Miranda Sex Garden; the Mediaeval Baebes; Levitation; Simon Fisher-Turner; Sofia; Broken Dog; Moose; Elevate; and Rosa Mota. Andrew recorded John Peel sessions with three different acts in a few months in 2000, leading Peel to joke on air that he should be banned from the Maida Vale studio because he was there too often. He has toured the UK, Europe and Japan on a number of occasions and played on film soundtracks including 'Ill Sleep When Im Dead' starring Clive Owen.......... Robin was reared on, and is still inspired by, classical music (JS Bach above all), then discovered Jazz in his late teens. He debuted as a New Orleans style trad trumpeter, then graduated to be-bop on the London circuit in the early 1960s. His influences were Clifford Brown, Fats Navaro, Dizzie Gillespie, earlier Miles, Charlie Parker, the Modern Jazz Quartet. After more than a decade pursuing the phantom of revolution, he returned to the music scene in the 1980s before linking up with son Andrew to launch Blowipe. Robin has also played and recorded with Rosa Mota, Horsepower, Sanchez, Butterfly Stitch, Tortus, SuperCzar, Aeronaut, Nick Marsh of Flesh for Lulu, and with his daughter Katharine Blick (aka Blake) for Miiranda Sex Garden and her own solo band, and with Andrew for Gyratory System, now recording with the Hansard and Angular labels (an experimental venture with and recorded with EMI's Food label with the Britpop band Octopus. He plays brass (Bb trumpet, piccolo trumpet, cornet, euphonium, tenor horn, fulgel and French horn) and reeds (tenor, alto, soprano and sopranino saxes and clarinet) and the medaeval corneto... Blowpipe have played at most of the top London venues (twice at Ronnie Scott's) and in Paris at the Batofar and La Scene. 'Themes from Blowpipe', the opening track from the Album Epilogue, features in the US award winning film 'Bittersweet Place' directed by Alexandra Brodsky. Blowpipe tracks have been used as theme music by two top London radio stations, and by the Ray Meers Bushcraft series on BBC TV.

Member Since:

April 10, 2006

Members:

At present: Robin Blick - reeds, brass; Andrew Blick - trumpet, programming

Influences:

Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Gil Evans, Lennie Tristano, A Certain Ratio, Brian Eno, Fela Kuti, Biting Tongues, Pigbag, Konk, JS Bach, 23 Skidoo, Maximum Joy, The Pop Group, Portishead, Talk Talk, Charles Mingus, Thelonius Monk, Suicide, MJQ, Franz Schubert, Johannes Brahms, Karl Heinz Stockhausen, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Richard Wagner, Bela Bartok, Claudio Monteverdi, Wolfgang Mozart, Ludvig Van Beethoven, Hector Berlioz, Giovanni Palestrina, Olivier Messiaen, William Byrd, Anton Webern, Christoph Gluck, Anton Bruckner...

Sounds Like:

"Mournful trumpet that is too easily compared to Mr Davis, loads of unfettered free falling brass, guitars that sparkle and howl, unashamed blankets of keyboard and effects, clean techno toplines plus supportive and understated percussion equals a sound that reminds me of Rip, Rig & Panic and the madder moments of Pigbag" - DJ.........."A demonic collision of atmospheric jazz tones and the lowest funk grooves, with all the imagination, drama and tangible tension of some mid-Fifties Miles Davis soundscape sax and trumpet warring over dark basslines or super Seventies sci-fi soundtracks...groove explosion that every jazz-funk and acid jazz creation tried desperately to induce in the early 1990s...the holy grail of groove, the mystical vision of brooding jazz, extrovert funk and every type of percussion from tables to decks" - Making Music.........."21st century chamber music, reminiscent of Miles Davis at his most seductive" - Birmingham Post.........."a sort of Kind of Blue for the chillout room...It's as if Gil Evans had met the Aphex Twin; if In a Silent Way had been remodelled by Goldie; or if Squarepusher had been given an enforced Prozac overdose to turn down the head on his flashy, glistening jazz-fusion leanings..." - Misfit City..........

Record Label:

Needlework; Robot; Harmsonic