Blood Quartet is an experimental band formed in Barcelona in 2015 by New Yorker Mark Cunningham (Mars, Don King, Raeo) alongside Catalan musicians Kike Bela, Lluís Rueda, and Carles Esteban. Their sound, featuring a hypnotic and cinematic aesthetic, combines no wave, jazz noir, industrial rock, and free improvisation. They have published five works: Dark Energy (2015), Deep Red (2016), Until My Darkness Goes (2018), Root 7 (2022), and, in collaboration with Dongyang Gozupa, Terra Ignota (2025). 

Blood Quartet's sound combines improvisation, unsettling atmospheres, and freeform structures inspired by free jazz and industrial rock, marked by a clear underground and experimental sensibility. They stand out for their ability to adapt to other disciplines such as cinema, dance, poetry, or performance art, having collaborated with artists like Miguel Ángel Blanca, Konik Thtr., Blanca Haddad, Ben Brooks, Laila Tafur, and musicians including Za!, Seward, and Julio César Palacio. Their sound is characterized by the use of effect-processed trumpet, distorted guitars, heavy bass, and broken rhythms, creating dark, unsettling, eerie and cinematic compositions reminiscent of a soundtrack to a distorted film noir or an abstract thriller – always driven by a strong improvisational presence and a radically free attitude.

Photo: Anita Cortes