’ve always had something of a mixed relationship with the EP. On the one hand it affords you a relatively risk free investment to become acquainted with either a new or established artist through a format which allows more scope than a single, but without the commitment of shelling out on a full-fat LP (see Blackalicious’ peerless A2G, Boards of Canada’s In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country and Badly Drawn Boy’s early Twisted Nerve releases). However, conversely, you can often find yourself lumbered with a selection of half-baked ideas either not good enough or too indulgent for the album, at a price which is by no stretch of the imagination frugal (I’m too polite to say…). As such I’m all for records like 4 Woman No Cry, where the Monika imprint have kindly assembled a gang of four whose alliance doesn’t extend beyond their gender and an ability to make challenging, but eminently listenable, music.

Completely segregated and with a liquid quarter dedicated to each, Rosario Bléfari, Tusia Beridze, Églantine Gouzy and Catarina Pratter (a Champions League back four if I’ve heard one…) have essentially produced an EP’s worth of material respectively, which has then been gaffer taped together with little concern for an overarching coherence or thematic rational. As with a standard label sampler, such unrooted diversity could precipitate auditory fragmentation where a few tracks stand proud and the rest deliquesce into an undefined musical soup. However, more optimistically, with intelligent sequencing and a strong line up, there is always the potential that these types of endeavours will both open new listening avenues whilst staking a claim as a gratifying experience in its own right. So will these four women have us prickly with delight or crying into our headphones? In we go…

With each contributor carrying a different national passport, 4 Woman No Cry could technically be referred to as World Music, although it bears no resemblance to the humus and Womad definition that has become the accepted exposition in recent years. Our first border stamp comes courtesy of Argentina’s Rosario Bléfari who contributes four songs to the collection and opens the album with “Partir Y Renunciar.” Taking a dash of Aphex Twin’s “Didgeridoo,” seasoning it with a lazy breakbeat that has all the pastoral swagger of Pause-era Four Tet, then bringing it to the boil through a scattering of piano and warm analogue emulsion, Bléfari creates a dish that is similar in tone to both The Pastels and St. Etienne. Possessing a voice that is both sweet and muted, Bléfari’s microphone reticence could have counted against her, but rather than see the vocals drown, it in fact allows the lyrics (sung in her native tongue) to coalesce and intermingle with the Latino-influenced instrumentation giving the impression that what you’re hearing is more a remarkable chance alignment of factors than a sentient arrangement. As if to heighten this illusion Bléfari incorporates bustling street sounds which provide welcome creases in the song on which the ear can snag and in doing so conjures images of balmy evenings where congenial auditory fragments drift in on the breeze from disparate destinations. I can almost feel the sun burn…

Probably as a means to both exhibiting the full spectrum of her oeuvre and as a challenge to the listener, Bléfari immediately juxtaposes her opening salvo with “Nunca.” Creeping into being through a border-line monastical chant, agitated glasses begin to chink, bike bells ring and bottles ping as Bléfari intones an almost plosive free vocal which is sporadically bleached by a coarse electronic squall that, whilst fairly deep in the mix, is nonetheless joyously conspicuous. Moving on from these cheap beats and slow-motion Liquid Liquid bass, “Melodia” is a straight up, melody-fed pop song in a similar vein to Hanne Hukkelberg, whilst parting shot “Vidriera Chilena” is a partially successful avant-composition whose final third (a found sound mosaic) more than acquiesces for any faults in the previous five minutes. One down, three to go.

A renowned audiovisual artist from Georgia (Eastern Bloc not Dirty South) covering an Eastern European campfire classic previously included on the Russian film Assa soundtrack? That’ll be Tusia Beridze then. Inhabiting the mildly baleful hinterland between The Moomins and Chica, “Gorod” is an undoubted highlight of 4 Woman No Cry with gauche guitars lapping the male/female duet as Beridze’s fuzzy vocals are set in phone. In a pronounced tangent to this is “Cuet,” wherein a whole sunrise of soapy-synth strings are given the Telefon Tel Aviv makeover to produce an English language lament of bare but extraordinary beauty, whilst the Valerie Trebeljahr vocal style is iced into submission on the Cityrockers soused “Wound.” Elsewhere Beridze indulges in a playful breed of electronica through the Plaid influenced “Kursaa” before taking a bow with the micro-sound indebted “Hextention” and “Late”; albeit a warmly clinical appropriation of the sound as opposed to the predominantly sterile output usually associated with the genre. With six tracks covering an admirably broad spectrum of styles, Beridze’s contribution will prove a hard act to follow.

The artist lumbered with the dubious pleasure of grabbing the baton from Berdize is Parisian Églantine Gouzy who, rather than attempt to match the magisterial gravitas of the proceeding work, chooses to indulge in a set of 8-bit vignettes which predominantly hover just above the two minute mark. Opening with the pithy “Eglantine Longe” and its melodramatic Karl Marx Stadt strings, Gouz then plunges into the buoyant “Nurse Song” where Björk comparisons (however superficially clichéd and lazy) are surely inevitable. Yet undoubtedly Gouzy’s star turn is the stuttering and crystalline beats of “Zone A,” where languid stings and menetrome bass ameliorate towards a wormwood scented climax that assuredly reeks of the romanticised picture of Paris given a 21st Century make over. Another highlight? Quite possibly.

The final act of this four woman show falls to Viennese singer and musician Catarina Pratter, whose four compositions consist of two long and two short. Although both vital in their own way, “Johnny Isolaschn” and “Policeman” are somewhat overshadowed by the two longer pieces on display. The first of these, “Dreamin of Love,” is yet another contender for album highlight. With an updated John Carpenter sound that would have been right at home on the recent Disco Undead compilation, Pratter leaves the electro exhaust idling in the background as she sets about a vocal of Roisin Murphy intensity. Structured around a burlesque stomp reminiscent of Louie Austen, “Dreamin of Love” intones its message of imaginary love through a thrilling vocal contrast where Pratter’s melodious tones are under laid with a Tron baritone. Closing on the dub-scoured tronic of “Stronger Than Before,” through its Zan Lyons pessimism and Telex shine, Pratter has ensured 4 Woman No Cry concludes in dignity and with standards suitably elevated. Mooted to be the first in an occasional series, 4 Woman No Cry is testament to all those involved and whilst all artistically distinct, their contributions have a lucid cohesion that rarely dips below A-grade material. An acquired taste at times it may be, but with four extraordinarily talented individuals putting forth a sterling EP’s worth of music each, it would be churlish not to have a taste.