The Fourth World Quartet for RIO/Avant-Prog

The Fourth World Quartet was an American experimental chamber rock ensemble from Ann Arbor, Michigan that existed for a short time in 1975, consisting of the brothers Roger (piano, percussion), Benjamin (guitar, saxophone) and Laurence Miller (bass clarinet) and Jack Waterstone (saxophone). The Miller brothers had previously been members of the band Sproton Layer. Contrary to the psychedelic hard rock sound of that band, the Fourth World Quartet was an attempt at creating a Stockhausen- and Stravinsky-influenced modern classical and free jazz sound within a rock context, similar to what Rock In Opposition bands such as Henry Cow and Univers Zero were doing around the same time period. The project lasted only a few months before the band members went their separate ways: Benjamin and Laurence joined the punk rock outfit Destroy All Monsters while Roger eventually went on to co-found the avant-prog band Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic and the post-punk group Mission Of Burma. The Quartet's lone recording (engineered by future Birdsongs member Rick Scott) remained unpublished for decades before finally being publicly released by Cuneiform Records in 2021.

1975 (Studio album, 2021)
1.    Reverse Coil Distinction (4:06)
2.    Pompeii (8:29)
3.    The Transformation of Oz (2:54)
4.    Alone in Allendale (3:11)
5.    Glanmane (1:36)
6.    Journey to Bubbleland (4:53)
7.    Winter’s Dream (7:13)
8.    Bubble on a Stem (4:37)
9.    Tnoona (6:56)
10.    Ambrosia Triangle (5:18)
11.    Renard the Fox (1:30)

Total Time 50:43
Released by Cuneiform Records on CD and as a digital album on Bandcamp on June 25, 2021*

- Benjamin R. Miller / electric guitar, alto saxophone
- Laurence B. Miller / bass clarinet
- Roger C. Miller / piano, percussion
- Jack Waterstone / alto saxophone

*Bandcamp page lists the official release date as June 25 but the full album can already be purchased and heard as of June 20.