Dave Miller - Dave Miller (2020)

"Dave Miller has a penchant for melodies that stick with you, in a good way. His latest album provides the joy and the lift we all need right now-- through his bad ass guitar playing, a myriad of unexpected shifts reveal a brilliant sonic universe."
- Mary Halvorson

Guitarist and composer Dave Miller (Greg Ward’s Rogue Parade, Dustin Laurenzi’s Snaketime, Joe Policastro Trio, Algernon, Ted Sirota’s Rebel Souls), has been a prominent fixture in the Chicago music scene for nearly two decades. His last record, Old Door Phantoms (ears&eyes Records), hailed by Audiophile Audition as “the multi-genre instrumental album of the year”, as well as “a complex and beautiful piece of work” by New City, explored themes of nature, spirituality, and the human condition through the lens of an instrumental psychedelic garage rock band.

Echoes of Neil Young’s Crazy Horse and guitarist ‪Marc Ribot‬ continue into Miller’s new album, Dave Miller, though he has expanded his focus to now include detailed arrangements and more refined production techniques. With the opening of Miller’s new recording studio, Whiskey Point Recording (co-run with ace pianist/engineer, Dan Pierson (V.V. Lightbody)), Miller’s music has become even more alive and exploratory. Beautiful mellotrons collide with fuzzed out guitars over swampy drums and non-ironic bongos, as if ‪Brian Wilson‬ got into a bar fight with The Meters and ‪Link Wray‬ before realizing they were kindred spirits, with Miller composing the score. Miller’s music, above all, aims to create its own utopic universe where all the cool music coexists.

Dave Miller - guitars
Matt Ulery - fender bass (Wild Belle, Greenleaf Music)
Dan Pierson - keyboards (V.V. Lightbody)
Devin Drobka - drums (Field Report)
Juan Pastor - percussion (Howard Levy, Fareed Haque, Miguel Zenón)
Mikel Patrick Avery - tambourine (Joshua Abrams Natural Information Society, Theaster Gates)
Mike Harmon - fender bass (track 4)(V.V. Lightbody)