You may be most familiar with Nick Millevoi as one-half of the two-pronged guitar offensive of the Solar Motel Band. But you may not know that Millevoi leads his own band of psych-jazz merchants, the Desertion Quartet, featuring Jamie Saft (frequent John Zorn collaborator), Ches Smith (whose extensive credits include Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog), and Johnny DeBlase (who also plays with Millevoi in Many Arms). Named for Millevoi’s upcoming album, Desertion, the group’s longform instrumentals oscillate between heavy riffage and and free-jazz freakouts. The Quartet opened up for the like-minded Sunwatchers earlier this month and treated the crowd to a preview of that album, which is due out May 20 on Shhpuma. “Desertion and the Arsonist’s Match” was recently written up by NPR and encompasses the breadth of the band’s range; but for my money it’s the eight-minute noise breadown “The Fire That Partially Destroyed City Hall” that’s most compelling. Either way, the players have the credentials and the songs to make Desertion one of this year’s most anticipated releases.
I recorded this set from the stage lip, combined with a board feed from Palisades FOH Ariel. The sound is outstanding. Enjoy!
Download the complete show: [MP3/FLAC]
Stream the complete show:
Nick Millevoi’s Desertion Quartet
2016-03-06
Palisades
Brooklyn, NY
Exclusive download hosted at nyctaper.com
Recorded and produced by Eric PH
Soundboard (engineer: Ariel) + AKG C480B/CK61 (stage lip) > Roland R-26 > 2xWAV (24/48) > Adobe Audition CC (align, mixdown, balance, compression, normalize, fades) > Izotope Ozone 5 (EQ, exciter) > Audacity 2.0.5 (downsample, dither, tracking, tagging) > FLAC (16/44.1, level 8)
Tracks [31:19]
01. Where They Do Their Capers >
02. Desertion and the Arsonist’s Match
03. Just for a Moment, I Stood There in Silence
04. [banter]
05. The Fire That Partially Damaged City Hall
Support Nick Millevoi’s Desertion Quartet: Website | Preorder Desertion via Bandcamp
I’ve streamed this a couple or three times while working long hours in the past couple days. Thank you. visiting bandcamp!
Really psyched (and a little surprised) to see this here. Many thanks for the recording and posting. Anyone that digs this should definitely check out Nick’s two Haitian Rail albums with Edward Ricart (who also runs the excellent Atlantis Records label). Both give me those Sonny Sharrock “ask The Ages” goosebumps.
awesome, Eric! you’ve really expanded this blog into some great territory.