Tim Berne's Snakeoil, this group that has grown into a conspired unit over many years, presents with The Deceptive 4 an extraordinary live double album. "This double-disc live document, The Deceptive 4, traces the evolution of both Berne’s writing for Snakeoil and the way the band interprets his compositions onstage – from the group’s nascent begin- nings to not long before the recording of its most recent studio release, and first for Intakt, The Fantastic Mrs. 10 (Intakt CD 340).
Disc 1 presents a Snakeoil concert recorded in 2017 within the studio-like acoustics of Firehouse 12 in New Haven, Connecticut. Disc 2 combines music from the foursome’s second and third shows ever, before Berne had even settled on a firm name for the band. The first three tracks on the second disc were recorded in 2010 at the intimate I Beam space in Broo- klyn, New York, with the fourth track – an homage to Berne’s key mentor, Saxophoneophonist-composer Julius Hemphill – taped in 2009 at the theater Roulette, also in Brooklyn.
The quartet music captured on The Deceptive 4 flows from sinuous lyricism to expressionistic fierceness and back again like sonic quick - silver, the players utterly attuned to each other and the questing, even head-spinning dynamism of the material’ writes Bradley Bambarger in the liner notes.

Cover art and design: Stephen Byram
Cover photos: Tim Berne
Band photos: Lynne Harty and Peter Gannushkin
Booklet design: Fiona Ryan
Liner notes: Bradley Bambarger

CD 1 Recorded live by Nick Lloyd at Firehouse 12, NY, on Dec 1, 2017.
CD 2 Recorded live by Joseph Branciforte at IBEAM, NY, on June 15, 2010 and at Roulette, NY, on November 21, 2009.
All music by Tim Berne (Party Music BMI) except „Hemphill“ by
Julius Hemphill (Subito music/ Tim Berne Party Music BMI). Mastered by David Torn. Produced and published by Intakt Records, Patrik Landolt, Anja Illmaier, Florian Keller, P. O. Box, 8024 Zürich, Switzerland.