Which is the more productive situation for improvisation: the shock of the first time encounter, unhindered by history or habit, or the long-term association and the evolution of more complex interactions? It's an unresolved, perhaps even undecidable, question. This recording brings together four improvisers together in a multi-layered situation which combines multiple permutations of the untried and the familiar. The four had never all played together before but the quartet contains various histories between individuals, with associations ranging from the established and ongoing (Lytton/Wooley, Prévost/Wright) and the emerging (Wooley/Wright) to the long dormant (Lytton/Prévost) and the completely fresh (Lytton/Wright, Prévost/Wooley).

It's undoubtedly an interesting situation, but one that is made even more so by the people involved: this is not just a theoretical experiment but a meeting of four individuals with distinct musical personalities and attitudes.

Paul Lytton and Eddie Prévost were key figures in the emergence of free improvisation as a distinct form of musical practice. Both transformed the role of percussionist from that of the jazz drummer and expanded their kits to include electronics, massive gongs, found objects, and other unusual items. Lytton's early duo recordings with Evan Parker, which still sound abrasively fresh today, reveal a mobile and inventive musical intelligence, overflowing with ideas and energy. Prévost is best known for his work with AMM, a radical improvising collective which transmutes ideas and practices from contemporary composition, philosophy and politics into a soundworld that is by turns meditative and shocking.

Nate Wooley and Seymour Wright are two of the most interesting of a younger generation of improvisers who have grown up with improvised music as a pre-existing, if unstable, entity. Both share a deep knowledge of improvised music's various pasts (musical and non-musical, improvised and otherwise); this historical awareness does not operate as a burden and a barrier to spontaneity but enriches their music, adding extra layers of anticipation and suspense, as can be heard on Wooley's duo collaborations with Lytton and Wrights's many excursions with Prévost.