My third recording of Milwaukee psych rock legends Vocokesh is now ready to be shared. Richard Franecki and his trio came to MKeUltra for an evening filled with experimental avantgarde music and the improvising psych rockers of Vocokesh fit perfectly with the other bands on the bill.
Interestingly, their first song of the set was a radical and extensive reworking of the title track from Pink Floyd's second album, something that barely registered with me at the show.
Richard Franecki: guitar Tom Schnier: bass Jim Gawelski: drums
Setlist: 01 A Saucerful of Secrets (19:10) 02 Two (5:04) 03 Three (7:18) 04 Four (8:00)
Total time = 39:32
Recorded with permission by Richard Hayes for this blog
Microphones: Line Audio CM3 in ORTF Additional source: mono SBD from Brian Hospital Recorder: Sound Devices MixPre6ii at 32/96 Software: Audacity, Fission, xAct
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I've been frightened at a concert twice in my life. The first was in 1987 while regretting my fragile mortality in a sea of shifting humans standing on metal chairs at the Pontiac Silverdome during a U2 concert, and the time in June 2023 at Acme Records when one of the musicians, dressed up like an alien cannibalistic swamp dweller, ran off stage directly at me on his way out of the building, screaming at the top of his lungs the whole time. Outside, on the sidewalk, he kept on screaming for a minute or so.
That last moment is captured in surprisingly good fidelity on this recording, where this enigmatic and anonymous duo opened for Derek Monypeny at Acme Records.
I'm afraid I can't quite explain in mere words how strange Ak'Chamel is. As an illustration of how they might perceive themselves, let me quote in full their promo material for their most recent album That will give you a picture of what we're dealing with:
Ak'chamel, The Givers of Illness plunged into truly deranged extremes to summon the decayed, otherworldly essence captured on Spiritually Unemployed, embracing unhinged and esoteric methods during the tracking process. Recorded in a makeshift adobe studio amid liminal border-zone ruins. Nocturnal treks along forgotten stretches near the U.S.-Mexico line, through derelict border outposts and sun-bleached vehicle husks, yielded unique recording opportunities: Ak'chamel dragged tape decks like sacrificial talismans, to capture gravel crunch, distant javalina fights, and unintentional EVP-like anomalies. Harvesting the psychic weight of migration, abandonment, and geopolitical limbo. A half-broken oud, double-reed pipes, a battered hurdy-gurdy, and self-built spike fiddles were "tortured" pre-recording; strings detuned to unstable microtonal chaos, reeds soaked in questionable desert-sourced liquids, and instruments were kept outdoors to absorb ambient dew, dust, and wild temperature swings, ensuring every take carried an unpredictable, haunted instability. Vintage cassette decks and reel-to-reel units were powered through erratic, low-voltage setups (literally dying generators) which introduced random voltage drops, speed fluctuations, and ghostly dropouts mid-take -- turning tracking into unpredictable spirit interventions. Fresh analog takes were dubbed onto tapes previously buried in arid soil throughout the hot day, then exhumed and played back while layering new overdubs; creating a palimpsest of temporal erosion where past decay bleeds into present performance. Live performances were blasted through overloaded, malfunctioning analog chains (cranked cassette walkmans, battered spring reverbs filled with gravel, warped echo units), then physically "mauled" by running the tape through sandpaper-wrapped capstans or crushing segments underfoot before resplicing -- resulting in tracks that feel compressed, twisted, and ruptured. Thus the desert claims its due: instruments tortured into prophecy, tapes interred and exhumed in chapels of malfunction. Spiritually Unemployed is the resulting artifact -- a sonic border autopsy where enlightenment arrives not as a sealed doctrine but as an open infested wound.
Honestly, it was an amazing experience. I've thought about this wild show often in the last three years and can't wait to see them again.
Swedish saxophonist Sebastian Strinning performed twice in the same month in Milwaukee during the month of October 2024, bringing a different group each time. This particular show featured bass clarinetistEmily Beisel, bassist Jakob Heinemann, and percussionist Bill Harris. It was a high-energy set with completely improvised material.
Brandon Seabrook's intense brand of avant garde jazz guitar performance, where sheets of sound descend upon the listener, is an exciting thing to experience. It can be overwhelming until the inevitable auditory adjustment has taken place. However I never feel assaulted by Seabrook's intensity -- instead it feels welcoming, with his energy and effort slowly pulling in the members of the audience into an ecstatic outpouring of emotion.
The Magic Tuber Stringband hails from Durham, North Carolina. Their blend of avant-folk reminded me quite a bit of folk drone legends Pelt as well as Universal Light. Their recent album on Thrill Jockey, Heavy Water, is packed with haunting melodies seasoned with an uneasy glowing light.
They came to the Jazz Gallery in July during a 17-date East Coast and Midwest tour for a brief but mesmerizing set.
Any band playing the Psych Fest during the day faces an added challenge, since the amazing projected light show by Lance ("Mad Alchemy") isn't possible with so much ambient light. The group impressed plenty of the audience, however, and I still see an occasional person around Milwaukee wearing a Muun Bato t-shirt. My hope is that they will be able to return to the Cream City soon.
Jon Collin is a British-born guitarist currently living in Sweden. He has released a nice stack of albums, including six volumes of music performed in various environments entitled Water and Rock Music.
For this short set, performed during an amazing evening at Acme Records which included solo guitar music by Bill MacKay and Rob Noyes, Collin served up some tasty sustained and shimmering ambient tones.
Since the late 1970s, Milwaukee has been home to the Jazz Estate -- a reliably excellent place to see both local and touring jazz musicians. This history has had its ups and downs, however.
During the first few months of the COVID pandemic, the Estate shut its doors, only to open up a bit later as a cocktail bar without its signature live jazz. In early 2025, the owner changed the format again, to feature live music but only opening for business on weekends. This format proved insufficient to keep the venue open, and a few months back the announcement came that the legendary club would once again close its doors.
On the final weekend of the venue, we were treated to a wonderfully engaging and confident double bill of Neil Davis and Andrew Trim, both strong local guitarists, and both backed by the capable rhythm section of bassist Clay Schauband drummer Devin Drobka. Davis' excellent first set will be shared soon; we are now presenting Trim's fiery final set of the evening. The set opens with originals by both Schaub and Trim before leading to an unexpected Daniel Johnston cover and several jazz standards. Davis returns to the stage to partner with Trim for the final three tunes.
Knifeplay came through Milwaukee on tour a few months ago and stopped at MKeUltra for a compact, melodic set. This shoegaze band formed in 2017 in Philadelphia and has released two studio albums, a live cassette, and a handful of EPs since. I thought it was a really excellent set of music and I'm looking forward to seeing them the next time they are on tour in the Midwest.
