Desertion track premiered at Aquarium Drunkard

I'm happy to announce that in May, Shhpuma, a great part of the Clean Feed label that focuses on releasing music that goes "beyond, below and above the jazz realm," will release my new record, Desertion.

This album features my Many Arms bandmate, Johnny DeBlase, on upright and electric bass, Jamie Saft on Hammond organ and piano, and Ches Smith on drums, masterfully recorded by Saft at Potterville International Sound. Dan Blacksberg contributed a trombone choir and a string arrangement performed by June Bender.

Aquarium Drunkard dropped the first taste today, premiering the track "Just For a Moment, I Stood There in Silence," in a review that also discusses the new Solar Motel record (on which I play), and the new Sunwatchers record.

Check it out here: http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2016/03/01/checking-back-into-the-solar-motel-chris-forsyth-the-solar-motel-band-sunwatchers-nick-millevoi/

Haitian Rail full concert video by Kinan Faham

BugOut Footage

Last weekend, I put together BugOut, a band to play some compositional ideas I had about free jazz blasting. Philadelphia video-archivist master Kinan Faham (The Silent Camera) took this awesome video, with great quality audio. This show was a serious party.

The band featured:

Dan Blacksberg - trombone
Julius Masri - circuit bent keys
Pete McRae - el. bass
Ricardo Lagomasino - drums

Haitian Rail Record Release Gallery on Impose

Impose just posted an awesome gallery from the Haitian Rail Record Release show in Brooklyn at Death by Audio.

Check it out here: http://www.imposemagazine.com/photos/ed-ricart-and-nick-millevoi-quartet-with-dan-blacksberg-and-kevin-shea-and-more-at-death-by-audio

Haitian Rail Release Shows and Press

Last weekend, I played four record release shows for Haitian Rail with Ed Ricart, Dan Blacksberg, and Kevin Shea. The shows were a lot of fun and the music really developed into something different each night.

Haitian Rail is available on tape from New Atlantis Records, and on orange vinyl LP from Gaffer Records, or from me ($6/tape, $17/LP postage paid) via PayPal (nick.millevoi gmail). 

Here it is:

In Philadelphia, Kinan Faham filmed our entire set, which you can check out here:

We also received some really great press from the Philadelphia City Paper:

http://www.citypaper.net/agenda/RicartMillevoi_Quartet.html

Jump Philly, who posted a lot of great photos:

http://jumpphilly.com/2013/08/12/ricartmillevoi-quartet-ortliebs-lounge/

 And a nice preview from TimeOut New York:

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/music/ricart-millevoi-quartet-andrea-parkins-weasel-walter-and-elliott-sharp

Videos

Thanks to Kinan Faham over at The Silent Camera, there are full video recordings of the two sets I played in Philadelphia with Toshimaru Nakamura this month.

Here's our set at AUX/Vox Populi as Many Arms + Toshimaru Nakamura:



And here's the set from ASPS at Studio 34 as Toshimaru Nakamura & Co. (also featuring Dan Blacksberg, Jesse Kudler, Ian Fraser, Julius Masri, Amy Cimini, and Keir Neuringer):

Mood Indigo

About 10 days ago or so, I woke up with "Mood Indigo" stuck in my head. I had a whole arrangement in there, but couldn't remember which version it was. I thought it was the version on Thelonious Monk's trio album of Duke Ellington tunes, but it wasn't. I thought it was Marc Ribot's version from his album Rootless Cosmopolitans, but it wasn't. After listening to a few more, I remembered that Otomo Yoshihide has a great solo version on one of my favorite albums of his, Guitar Solo, but that wasn't the arrangement I had in my head either. I worked it out and played it and decided it was my own.

It didn't stop though. "Mood Indigo" followed me around for days. After listening to so many different takes on the song and playing it incessantly on guitar, it really got lodged in my brain. I started dreaming about it more - I can remember two consecutive mornings where I woke up thinking of the song.

I told Dan Blacksberg about this. He told me the same thing was happening to him, that he'd be listening to different versions of the song and had been practicing different arrangements of it. He sent me this incredible version:



The obvious answer would be that the two of us heard it somewhere while we were together, but we couldn't think of any time it could have happened. I can't even recall having head "Mood Indigo" for such a long time! We don't really know what to make of this.

I gave into whatever cosmic force is pushing this song into my consciousness and I've been playing it more. I've come up with a couple of different solo versions and so has Dan. On December 8, we're going to open our concert with a duo version of "Mood Indigo." It seems to be the only thing that makes sense.

Today I listened to Oliver Sacks' interview on Fresh Air from a few days ago. In the interview, he discussed his new book, Hallucinations, and talked about various types of hallucinations and his own experience with them. At the end of the interview, after Terry signed off, there was "Mood Indigo."