The Squid's Ear Magazine


Millevoi's, Nick Desertion Trio (w/ Jamie Saft): Midtown Tilt (Shhpuma)

Leaning more towards rock than jazz, but blending compelling blues-based improv, NY guitarist Nick Millevoi leads his Desertion project through a look at Wildwood, NY, the core of the trio as bassist Johnny DeBlase (Many Arms, Sabbath Assembly) and drummer Kevin Shea (Mostly Other People Do The Killing, Talibam!), with Jamie Saft on organ throughout.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Nick Millevoi-guitar

Johnny DeBlase-electric bass

Kevin Shea-drums

Jamie Saft-organ

Ashley Tini-vibes, shakers


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UPC: 5609063000375

Label: Shhpuma
Catalog ID: SHH037
Squidco Product Code: 25364

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2018
Country: Portugal
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at Potterville International Sound, in Kerhonson, New York, on November 11th, 2016, by Jamie Saft.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.
Bagatelles) Desertion project has created its second opus, Midtown Tilt. Now using the title Desertion Trio, the band features Johnny DeBlase (Many Arms, Sabbath Assembly) on bass, and Kevin Shea (Mostly Other People Do The Killing, Talibam!) at the drumkit, and follows 2016's Desertion by also featuring guest Jamie Saft (Electric Masada, The New Standard Trio with and without Iggy Pop) on the organ. Vibraphonist and percussionist Ashley Tini joins on three tracks.

Much like Desertion, the formula for Midtown Tilt continues to follow an instrumental country-folk-rock mix with elements from jazz, as we would expect from these musicians. The musicians improvise as if their lives depend on it, but also evoke an imagery that takes listeners through the history of instrumental electric guitar music.

Inspired by the town of Wildwood, NJ and the anachronistic clash of re-imagined cultures seen in its motels and amusements, Midtown Tilt is an amalgamation of jazz, psychedelic blues, surf music, and country rock instrumentals, often reminding us of Neil Young's Crazy Horse scoring a western. Through Saft's organ, something else is added: traces of the rhythm and blues played by Booker T. and The M.G.'s and of the blues-rock of bands like The Spencer Davis Group, Traffic and Blind Faith. The mix is explosive."-Shhpuma


Artist Biographies

"Nick Millevoi is a guitarist and composer whose music searches for the sonic cracks between jazz, rock and roll, noise, and modern composition. His band, Desertion Trio, featuring bassist Johnny DeBlase and drummer Kevin Shea, takes on the history of instrumental electric guitar music and throws it in a blender. Noisey describes Desertion Trio as "Supremely weird desert noir," and NPR Music said the band's debut "hits the sweet spot between Neil Young's exploratory Crazy Horse jams and a spaghetti western soundtrack."

Millevoi also makes one half of the duo Archer Spade, with trombonist Dan Blacksberg. With Archer Spade, Nick has has performed composed works by Derek Bailey, Mick Barr, Roscoe Mitchell, Dave Soldier, Gene Coleman, and many others. With guitarist Matt Hollenberg (Cleric, John Frum), Millevoi co-leads the Hollenberg-Millevoi Quartet, formed to perform John Zorn's Bagatelles. Nick was co-leader of the power trio, Many Arms, releasing five full-length records, including two for John Zorn's Tzadik label, has been a member of Chris Forsyth & the Solar Motel Band, performing on their critically-acclaimed double LP, The Rarity of Experience, as well as a member of Hassidic doom metal band Deveykus (Tzadik). In addition to these longer standing collaborations, Nick has performed with Mostly Other People Do the Killing, Dead Neanderthals, Nels Cline, Marc Ribot, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Fugazi's Joe Lally.

As a performer in many different projects, Nick regularly tours throughout the US and Europe, and has performed at festivals such as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Gaffer Fest (France), Incubate (Netherlands), Mission Creek Festival (US), the Montreal Jewish Music Festival, Nelsonville Music Festival (US), the New Atlantis Festival (DC), Suoni Per Il Popolo (Canada), and John Zorn's Masada Book Three Premiere concert at New York's Town Hall and Ultimate Bagatelles Marathon. Nick's music has been released by labels such as Tzadik, ShhPuma/Clean Feed, New Atlantis, Gaffer, The Flenser, Sick Room, and Public Eyesore."

-Nick Millevoi Website (nickmillevoi.blogspot.com/p/bio.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Johnny DeBlase is a bassist and composer from New York City. He splits much of his musical time pushing the boundaries of avant-rock and free jazz as a member of the guitar trios Many Arms and Zevious. He also leads his own quartet and composes an eclectic mix of chamber and electronic music. Johnny has toured the US and Canada extensively and has released albums on Tzadik, Cuneiform Records, Engine-ESP, Majmua Music, and Abandon Ship Records."

-Johnny DeBlase Website (http://johnnydeblase.blogspot.com/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Kevin Shea is valued as being a vital and original artist in the contemporary music scene. Shea's originality is manifested not only by his personal approach to his instrument, but also throughout his constant search for new musical horizons unifying all the bands he has been involved in despite the parameters set for musicians by genre definition, or by historical icons.

The plurality of rigorous artistic aspirations and creative engagement that distinguish the discography of Kevin Shea are not the product of chance or merely taking advantage of opportunities -- but the result of labor, strong convictions, and a strong conceptual support -- a deliberate search for transitional territories away from the dogmas of boring and unnecessary conventions.

Shea's artistic interests are rooted in reevaluating what a band/music, musician/performer, artist and audience can and should be. Splitting the difference between passion and song, Shea plays multi-dimensional utopian sound in which opposing musical forces integrate to form a new sustainable recipe for sound and social implication. Remaining devoted to his belief that the application of sonic diversity is paramount to the appreciation of human diversity, Shea's ultimate goal has been to wed disparate ideologies through proficiency, controversy, inquiry, and compassion -- an approach perpetuating audiences, listeners, and sometimes fellow band members, to face, question, define, and attempt to defend their own level of tolerance and compassion head-on, no-holds-barred.

Through this carefully planned direct method in the round, Shea's sonic investigations emphatically traverse the mobius strip highway of refurbished canticles, perpetually climaxing between Sadean semelparity and Platonic resurrection. At the heart of Shea's dialectical core, unabashed artifacts of rhythmic iconoclasm conjoin with anthemic melody gestures and modern memory loss to create a vital force that gives us bittersweet contemplation and empathy.

As a youth, Shea moved throughout the States many times, transforming any of his formal expectations into a joyous foundation of constant flux. He learned that intuition and customs had to be constantly re-evaluated and negotiated rather than held as sacred. This process of questioning is central to Shea's music. To him, sound is a result of a broader process rather than formulas tied to notions of predictable emotional response. Shea sees sound and music, not as a prize, but a simple aspect of banal daily life.

Kevin Shea has over 25 years of experience as a professional drummer, composer and performer. He has recorded on over 120 albums in a mish-mash of contexts and has performed in over 40 countries. His training started in public elementary school and continued steadily through his college years at Berklee College of Music."

-Kevin Shea website (http://www.kevinshea.info/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Jamie Saft (piano, organs, analog synthesis, bass and guitar, steel guitars) is a native of Queens, New York. Since returning to New York in 1993, Saft's stylistic versatility, multi-instrumentalist capabilities, and production skills have been featured with the Beastie Boys, Bad Brains, the B-52's, Laurie Anderson, Bobby Previte, John Zorn, Dave Douglas, Jerry Granelli, Holly Palmer, Marc Ribot's Los Cubanos Postisos, Elysian Fields, Black Beatle, Antony and the Johnsons, Chocolate Genius, JoJo Mayer's Nerve, E-Z Pour Spout, Cuong Vu, Chris Speed Trio Iffy, Jane Ira Bloom, and the Groove Collective.

Saft is a mainstay of the downtown scene and a member of bands such as The Beta Popes, Whoopie Pie, Swami LatePlate, The Shakers and Bakers, Kalashnikov, Pramrod Sexena, and John Zorn's Electric Masada.

Saft was the pianist for the New York and Paris premiers of John Adams' opera "I Was Looking at the Ceiling and then I Saw the Sky" at Lincoln Center and MC93 Bobingy.

Saft has recently composed a number of original film scores and music fortelevision. Recent films scored include the Oscar nominated film"Murderball", Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner "God Grew Tired Of Us",and currently airing HBO documentary "Dear Talula". Saft has alsocontributed score music for Nickelodeon, MTV, and A&E.."

-Jamie Saft Website (http://www.jamiesaft.com/html/bio.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Ashley Tini is a percussionist, hair-stylist and former graffiti artist born and currently based in South Philadelphia. Her work seeks to create altered states by challenging concepts of ritual and their relation to time and place. Equally versed in 20th and 21st century concert music, free improvisation, Ghanaian Ewe, and Central African Pygmy music. Tini is invested in music that refracts folkloric concepts through contemporary contexts.

As a percussionist, she has recorded and performed the works of George Crumb, Pauline Oliveros, Mauricio Kagel, Phillip Glass, So Percussion, Mohammad Fairouz, Stuart Saunders Smith, Milford Graves, Susie Ibarra, Matthew Welch, Dave Molk and Sarah Hennies. Tini has also been a featured guest on concerts and recordings by Broken Social Scene, Do Make Say Think, and Feist.

Duomo, her chamber duo with percussionist Emily Strachan, specializes in commissioning works by living women composers who offer new presentations for percussion.

Tini has devoted extensive research to Exotica, a genre that spawned its own set of cultural rites by taking ritualistic music completely out of context. In summer 2016, she began an ongoing residency at the estate of famed Exotica composer Elisabeth Waldo, who studied under Jascha Heifetz and worked closely with Les Baxter, Yma Sumac, and Billy May. Together, they will continue to premiere concerts of chamber music for indigenous Pre-Columbian American instruments.

Ashley holds a Bachelors of Music in Performance from The University of Kansas, where she studied with renown percussionist Ji Hye Jung. Tini appears on the Naxos, Ecstatic, Constellation, High Two Labels and is a featured artist on VicFirth.com"

-Ashley Tini Website (www.ashleytini.com)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Midtown Tilt 7:49

2. It's a Hard World for Little Things 3:50

3. Numbers Maker 6:12

4. Jai Alai Noon 7:13

5. The Myna Bird 5:03

6. The Carideon 5:58

7. Fascination Fadeaway 5:49

Related Categories of Interest:


Rock and Related
Improvised Rock
Jazz
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Quintet Recordings
Melodic and Lyrical Jazz
Clean Feed
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