Where Were We?

City of Four’s largest effort to date, Where Were We? features 65 minutes of music displaying a diverse range of influences. The selection of compositions on presentation harkens back to jazz fusion pioneers like Herbie Hancock and Weather Report, and takes inspiration from contemporary jazz artists like Robert Glasper, Joshua Redman, and Aaron Parks.

While familiar influences can be heard in City of Four’s music, the band’s sound is also singularly unique. The music on Where Were We? is an amalgamation of the creative minds of four composers, Mike Caudill (saxophone), Blain Crawford (bass), Steve Wilkinson (drums), and Cat Tremblay (keyboards), who each contribute a distinct compositional style. 

From the brooding and dark 11 minute epic “Mirage” (Wilkinson), to the funky, upbeat, and danceable numbers “Orbs” (Caudill) and “So I’ve Been Told” (Tremblay), to the hard hitting rock/fusion inspired “Sand and Snow” (Crawford), the breadth of styles on display is sprawling, yet firmly grounded in improvisation, communication, and conversational playing that supports the collective performance of the entire group.

This culminates in a record that rewards repeated listening with newly discovered interactions between each of the four players.  The album sounds like a conversation between four friends, and the title, Where Were We?, was in fact the first question band members asked each other when making plans for their next steps of recording music that captured the energy and spontaneity of their pre-pandemic live performances.

City of Four recorded Where Were We? at Wellspring Sound in Acton, MA with renowned engineer Matt Hayes. The album was mixed and mastered at Bass Hit Studios in New York, NY by Dave Darlington, a multi-Grammy winner who has worked with jazz greats the likes of Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Jack DeJohnette, and hundreds more.

The album’s artwork was created by the incomparable Daniel Thompson from Indianapolis, IN.  Thompson’s unique blend of graffiti-inspired abstract art serves as the listener’s first impression of the album and works to perfectly embody each song’s unique personality, welcoming the viewer to the music within through its spiraling blend of colors and textures.

For Where Were We?, City of Four is partnering with New Jersey based label Mint 400 Records, and the band will be traveling down the East Coast through NYC and NJ to promote the new album for a week in mid-April 2022. 

Along with the announcement of the full LP, February 25 marks the release of the album’s single “Orbs,” which will be available on all major platforms.

Where Were We? is the follow up to the band’s 2021 EP Not Lost, an independent release and the first to feature the current lineup.