Guitarist Nick Millevoi co-founded Basic with Chris Forsyth and Mikel Patrick Avery a few years back and then stepped away from the band after their excellent debut LP. But he explores some similar textures and tones with the perfectly titled Electric Scribbles on the Grid, a recent collab with Zach Goldstein, out now on Island House. The six tracks here take inspiration from the always fresh Fripp/Eno axis (with a little Lanois in there, too) and the kosmische imaginations of Manuel Göttsching and Michael Rother. It's both tightly wound and free-flowing, interlocking pieces coming together and breaking apart, almost simultaneously. At just 26 minutes, it all flies by too fast, perhaps. But hopefully, there will be further adventures on the Grid.
BASIC - This Is BASIC - guitarists Chris Forsyth & Nick Millevoi in a tribute to Robert Quine & Fred Maher's 1984 album Basic
BASIC, a mind-meld between Chris Forsyth, his frequent running partner (and formidable 6-string thinker) Nick Millevoi, and Mikel Patrick Avery presents This Is BASIC, a complex and entrancing instrumental LP recasting forgotten scraps of guitar history into a moving mosaic of strings, skins and electronics.
Back in the mid ’80s (a moment in music history as remote to us now as bebop was to us back then), there was an entire subgenre spawned by prog-rock-gone-new-wave icons meeting up to make sounds, their names reading like a panoply of druggy law firms: Manzanera & Bruford, Fripp & Summers, French/Frith/Kaiser/Thompson. Their records clogged pre-internet college radio playlists, cut-out bins and public library shelves, but served as a touchstone for heads seeking inspiration from deeper wells than FM rock radio (which was fixated, then as now, on the Eagles and Led Zeppelin). Far from being mere self-indulgences, these “side projects” were, at best, outlets for exploration of then-novel technologies (looping, drum programming, sampling, etc.) for creators otherwise stuck in ’70s projects moribund with fan expectations and music-biz balance sheets.
One such record is guitarist Robert Quine and drummer Fred Maher’s Basic, an arachnidian weave of subtly shifting rhythm tracks and chiming guitar that, true to its name, was left largely untouched by Quine’s celebrated McLaughlin-through-a-cheese grater solos (a trait that did not please many critics at the time). Quine’s untimely passing has since awakened many to the joys hidden within his scant solo discography, but more expansive ears were already tuned in, including a few guitarists hungry for sounds outside of the second-hand pentatonic canon—among them, Chris Forsyth and Nick Millevoi.
Chris Forsyth: guitar
Nick Millevoi: baritone guitar & drum machine
Mikel Patrick Avery: percussion & electronics
Cover art at by MPA
Chris Forsyth — Plays Love Devotion Surrender (Bandcamp, 2024)
The golden anniversary of John McLaughlin and Carlos Santana’s 1973 record Love Surrender Devotion passed last year without much fanfare: no deluxe reissue or archival release from a short-lived supergroup of sorts. It instead remains one of the lesser explored chapters of McLaughlin’s long career.
Which isn’t to say it’s overlooked or under appreciated. The jam-heavy album of hard driving fusion has found fans over the decades, most notably guitar hero Chris Forsyth. At last fall’s Philly Music Fest, Forsyth headed a band that replayed the album in full for a packed crowd at Solar Myth. He was joined by guitarist Nick Millevoi, a rhythm section of Douglas McCombs, Mikel Patrick Avery and Ryan Jewell, plus Brent Cordero on electric organ. And not too long ago he made this set available for purchase on his Bandcamp.
Throughout Love Devotion Surrender, Forsyth and company don’t stray too far from the original. It’s the same material, roughly in the same order: the last two tracks are flipped, but it works to give this record a bombastic finale instead of the muted coda on the original.
It opens with John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” and a burst of sound before the band settles into Coltrane's familiar intro. Forsyth’s guitar has a sharp tone that squeals and sounds like he’s pushing his amp to its limit. His playing is fluid and moves between longer notes and quick little flurries — a departure from McLaughlin’s machine gun-spray of notes on the original. Meanwhile Millevoi chugs along on rhythm guitar behind him with a choppy, wah-heavy tone. After a while they trade off and Millevoi steps up for a solo of his own, the two of them building up into a frenzy of dueling leads playing off each other. After about ten minutes the pace slows down a bit and they both settle into playing the iconic Coltrane riff. It’s an effective way to open the record, grabbing your attention and setting the mood of a night of guitar frenzy.
The band then moves into “Niama,” another Coltrane number. But this is the first step away from the record: where McLaughlin and Santana played this acoustically, with a bit of a Latin tinge, this band plays it a slow electric blues. The guitars draw the emotion out of this one as Cordero’s organ gives them a bed of sound to work on top of. It segues nicely into McLaughlin’s “A Love Divine” which builds up slowly from Cordero’s droning organ and bursts of percussion from Avery and Jewell. Both the guitarists slowly work their way into this one but before long they’re playing a flurry of notes as the rhythm section builds up the tension by playing the beat faster and faster. The whole band works itself up into a lather, finishing this one with blasts of cymbals and squealing guitars while McCombs keeps them on track with his bass.
Next comes the second wrinkle of the night: the band swaps the order of “Meditation” and “Let Us Now Enter the House of the Lord” while also changing the first to another slow electric blues from a sparse acoustic theme. With Cordero’s organ and McCombs bass holding the groove down, both Forsyth and Millevoi take their time to play around the chorus and trade off short solos. It’s actually one of the set’s more approachable moments and wouldn’t feel out of place on a Solar Motel record.
They finish the evening off with “Let Us Now…” which is a fitting bookend with “A Love Supreme.” They’re both lengthy performances where the guitars trade off riffs and are played something like spiritual jazz fusion opening with flurries of notes and drum rolls. It evolves into a vaguely Latin groove for the two guitars to solo over and eventually to jam in unison together.
The thing about a record like this is that for all the guitar heroics it doesn’t quite have the same spark as the original. There, both Santana and McLaughlin were going for a spiritual vibe, playing hard and fast like they were trying to lose themselves in the music and push into something spiritual. Indeed, bootlegs of this band on their short tour show them regularly pushing songs past the 20-minute mark. That was a group reaching for ecstasy.
By contrast, you never get the same feeling from Forsyth and company here. As good as their playing is, you know they’re playing tribute to a record instead of trying to catch the same religious feeling. It’s not really a bad thing, it just means they’re playing it a little safer and closer to the vest even when they work themselves up into a frenzy.
As far as tributes go, Plays Love Devotion Surrender doesn't mess with the gospel and anybody who loves guitar-heavy jamming will enjoy this. While it might not completely work for people unfamiliar with the original record or those without the patience to sit through long guitar workouts, fans with worn out copies of the original will have a lot here to chew on.
Nick Millevoi is a Philadelphia guitarist, involved in many different projects and hard to pin down. His latest, Moon Pulses, is solitary and luminous, built on slow, repeating guitar parts, one for rhythm, one for melody, played by Millevoi himself with one thumb. That’s the mechanics of it, one guy, alone in his recording space, plunking out a beat, weaving a short motif. Yet the mechanics are just the wireframe, in these six pieces you can hear Millevoi musing on time and space and vibration, finding a space to breathe within limitation and conjuring layers of hiss and tune that surround him like a fog.
All the pieces are titled “Moon Pulses,” numbered one through six to differentiate them. They flow easily, one to another, running at more or less the same unhurried pace and exploring different aspects of a serene, nocturnal landscape. Yet though the album coheres, it doesn’t remain static. Each pulse is its own thing. “Moon Pulse One,” for instance, slides and veers vertiginously, the rhythm track dopplering in and out of an arching melody. “Two” is softer, more meditative, the melody pulled up front, high and pure as the whoosh of electronics ebbs and flows underneath. “Five” runs close to rock, a buzzing riff flirting with electro pops and beeps; it sounds a little like Chris Forsyth stretching out a blues lick into a long psychedelic groove. “Six” switches the action to lap steel, letting long, shape-shifting tones curl like smoke atop staccato rhythms.
Moon Pulses lasts just under half an hour, always calm but always pushing at the boundaries of what quiet inquiry might sound like. It captures the startling stillness of late, restless nights; it calms the brain chatter that keeps us up till the light. The music could hardly be more different from Millevoi’s beat-centric, hip-hop/electro-influenced Digital Reaction of 2023, or the cinematic western swagger of his Desertion from 2016. It’s lucid, radiant and reassuring, but far too prickly to lull the listener into complacency.
Coca Leaves & Pearls - Trans Pecos, Queens, New York, June 11, 2023
I'm off to see Neil in LA this week! Holy Shakey. He's already pulled out some serious deep cuts ... once again, I'm putting up a prayer for "Will To Love." But whatever happens, I bought that ticket and I took that ride, right?
Neil hasn't announced any dates after this west coast tour, but I'm sure there will be some forthcoming. For those out east, I implore you to go see this new-ish band featuring Doom & Gloom faves Chris Forsyth and Nick Millevoi plus bassist Jordan Burgis and drummer Joey Sullivan.
As Coca Leaves & Pearls, they head delightedly for the ditch, playing some extremely sweet Young covers drawn primarily from the 1970s. There are a bajillion Dead tribute acts, there should be at least a bazillion Neil tribute acts. CL&P are setting the gold standard right now. Lookout, Joe! (Now, where's the tape of Zach Cale's set?!)
Elevated Rail 3: 2016 Was A Million Years Ago (Pt. 1)
At long last, Joel returns with another edition of his Elevated Rail mix series for Aquarium Drunkard! Necessary live jams from Chicago ... The first of three volumes!
This first 2016 mix begins with the always-incredible Lambchop, presenting a then-new spin on deepcut “FA-Q” – vocoder-Kurt! Next we have former Chicagoan Tim Rutili reviving his classic Califone project, this time in duo form with the great Joe Westerlund on percussion. “Psychedelic Supergroup” Heron Oblivion brings the heat, easing into a great jam from Nick Millevoi’s Desertion Trio. Bitchin Bajas & Bonnie “Prince” Billy then offer a glimpse into a cult I might actually want to join (to paraphrase AD’s Tyler Wilcox), before the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen blasts us to Saturn. Turn on, tune in, space out.
Daniel Bachman / Desertion Motel Band - Jerry’s On Front, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 2018
Two totally sweet recordings from last week via Kris, the Philadelphia Taper. Chris Forsyth has just opened up a new venue, and if these shows are anything to go by, Jerry’s On Front is the place to be in the City of Brotherly Love. The Bachman set is just about perfect (with a drone assist from sister Sarah) and the Desertion Motel Band jam sesh sees Forsyth and Nick Millevoi weaving a heady web of guitar magic. You know what I mean. Have you checked out Nick’s latest yet? It rules. By the bye, there are rumors flying about a fresh Bachman LP on Three Lobed! Always exciting.
