Blight Music by Sam Ospovat

Note!
Due to the tariff situation the North American distributor for Blight Music (MVD) has moved the U.S. release date to Dec. 12th.
Sam Ospovat’s Blight Music Channels NYC’s Raw Energy Through a Transatlantic Avant-Garde Lens

Blight Music, the third album by drummer and composer Sam Ospovat as a bandleader, is an uncompromising statement that bridges the ecstatic freedom of avant-garde improvisation with the rhythmic vitality and melodic tension of the 1970s loft jazz scene. The album doesn’t just nod to history—it vibrates with it, reimagining past energies for a chaotic present.

Recorded in a burned-out, graffiti-covered waterfront warehouse in Brooklyn’s Bush Terminal, Blight Music captures more than just music. It captures atmosphere. Concrete pillars, soaring 20-foot ceilings, and the industrial remnants of New York’s past created a reverberant environment where the city's monumental history, volatile present, and uncertain future all seemed to collide. That tension lives in every note—raw, alive, unfiltered.

The music itself is a high-wire act. It veers between exuberant melodic lines and unrelenting intensity, often suspending time through intricate polyrhythmic layers. Each composition is executed with fiery conviction by a transatlantic supergroup of improvisers—musicians known for their adventurous spirits and distinct voices.

The core ensemble includes:

Matt Mitchell (piano), who also contributes the album’s liner notes,

Tim Dahl (fretless electric bass),

Finnish ECM legend Raoul Björkenheim (electric guitar),

Olli Hirvonen (electric guitar),

Matt Nelson (tenor saxophone),

Nick Lyons (alto saxophone),

and Sam Ospovat on drums and compositions.

Together, they form a unit that Ospovat has cultivated over several years, with performances across New York and Europe. The group took on a more permanent shape after Ospovat’s nearly full-time move to Helsinki in 2022, evolving into a rare ensemble that defies national and stylistic borders.

As the band brings Blight Music to European stages in Helsinki, Tallinn, and Berlin from October 30th to November 1st, the saxophone section will feature Jeremy Viner and either Mikko Innanen or Michael Attias, adding new dimensions to the ensemble’s ever-evolving sound.

Blight Music is a fearless document—of place, of time, and of deep musical inquiry.

This excerpt from Matt Mitchell’s the liner notes offers a good primer:

’’People discuss “intensity” in music as if this quality is self-evident—and often it is. This music is definitely intense, and in many of the obvious ways: volume, density of information, texture. It “goes.” But Sam’s music also has intensity of purpose, a concept that I am pretty sure is inherent to all music that I value —the aforementioned urgent mission. Rigor is definitely present here, especially on the rhythmic front; this is a predilection Sam and I have long shared, one that drew us together in the first place. Paired with this is the need to blast through any preciousness perceived within rigor…Obviously this is where the improvising comes in. One of the draws for me with Sam’s music is the wide berth it grants the musicians amidst the interplay of his novel compositional conceits and the way he exhorts us to spontaneously engage with them via his multidirectional and powerful drumming. Intense, and also intense. On top of all this is the opportunity to do all this with a collection of the most unremittingly bad mofos around. This sort of intensity of purpose can seem rare, even when music is your life and you’re devoted to consuming, contemplating, or creating it. Regardless of the depth and breadth of one’s personal pantheon, there is always a feeling of having found a treasure when hitting upon something that intersects with one’s aesthetic values.

This “goes.”

Thanks.

-Matt Mitchell’’

Originally from Lincoln, Nebraska, Sam Ospovat played piano and sang in boys' choir before picking up his first pair of drumsticks in 5th grade. He made his recording debut at Fantasy Studios playing bell tree on Lou Harrison's “Threnody for Carlos Chavez.” He can be heard with Enablers, Flying Luttenbachers, Brandon Seabrook, Angelica Sanchez, Lydia Lunch, Ava Mendoza, and in his own contexts…

samospovat.com