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Skip to the Solo

by Henry Kaiser & Alan Licht

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $8 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Digipak with artwork by Tony Mostrom and liner notes by Alan Licht

    Includes unlimited streaming of Skip to the Solo via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 4 days

      $5 USD or more 

     

1.
More Or Less Cowbell 06:00
2.
Where Are They Now? 04:31
3.
Smolover's Dream 03:51
4.
The Pawn of Null-A 04:12
5.
File & Rank 03:27
6.
Variations On The Jerry Garcia Secret Chord Progression 04:13
7.
Rendezvous In Space 05:45
8.
Wong Dong Doodle 04:58
9.
What Is Arizona Really Like 03:35
10.
Dancing The Paphian Jig 05:41
11.
What's Your Line 06:55
12.
Ask Me About The Dorian Mode 04:09
13.
Blast of Silence 03:38
14.
Infernal Affairs 04:42

about

“One of the wildest concepts of any Kaiser record yet.”—Good Times

Henry Kaiser has made records with many like-minded guitar experimentalists (Derek Bailey, Ray Russell, Nels Cline, Jim O’Rourke, Fred Frith), but Skip to the Solo, his first album with his longtime friend (and one-time student!) Alan Licht, a denizen of multiple underground New York music circles, is unlike any of them. Recorded in Santa Cruz with drummer Rick Walker and third guitarist Mikko Biffle, with revolving bass duties, it’s an instrumental rock album but one with just molten, passionate soloing over simple progressions of 2 to 4 chords. The rhythms come from rock, Afropop, reggae, blues, jazz, Latin, you name it; it's not avant-garde per se but decidedly off-kilter and trans-idiomatic. The tracks have deliberately abrupt beginnings and endings, with brief 10-second "tags" sandwiched between them, so the album flows together as one big piece, à la The Faust Tapes (it’s also very much in the methodological lineage of Frank Zappa’s Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar). Even dedicated followers of both Kaiser and Licht’s patently unpredictable respective outputs will find themselves surprised by Skip.

The album’s title and concept harks back to the experience of playing vinyl records and lifting the stylus ahead to the guitar solo. Although they're a generation apart, in their younger days Henry and Alan would both do this and then jam along with the winding modal excursions over vamps like "Light My Fire," "Down By the River,” “Agharta Prelude,” “Alice in Blunderland,” “Dark Star,” "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed,” and many more. Alan was a fan of Henry's as a teenager in the 80s and took a workshop with him back then that was an eye-opener as far as listening to and playing free improvisation. They stayed in touch, played live together a few times, and had been talking about doing a record project for close to 20 years. Alan recalls, “During a 2015 duo gig at The Stone in NYC Henry turned to me and said ‘Play a couple of chords that I can fuzz solo over.’ A couple of days later it hit me--let's do a whole album of that!” This disc is it, one where the artists provide a notable service to the listener: they skip to the solos so that you don't have to!

Grammy winner Henry Kaiser is widely recognized as one of the most creative and innovative guitarists, improvisers, and producers in the fields of rock, jazz, world, and contemporary experimental musics. The California-based musician has appeared on more than 250 different albums and contributed to countless television and film soundtracks. Initially a key player in the first wave of U.S. free improvisers in the 1970s, Kaiser went on to spearhead such notable projects as the Miles Davis tribute Yo Miles (with Wadada Leo Smith), the World Out of Time series with David Lindley and musicians from Madagascar, and a parallel universe supergroup with Richard Thompson, John French, and Fred Frith. He received an Academy Award nomination for his work as the producer for Werner Herzog's Encounters at the End of the World, also working as the underwater cameraman and soundtrack composer for that film. www.henrykaiserguitar.com

Released on CD by Public Eyesore in 2016

credits

released May 14, 2020

Henry Kaiser: guitar & bass (solos on tracks 1, 4, 6, 10, 13,14)
Alan Licht: guitar & bass (solos on tracks 3, 7, 9, 12, 14)
Mikko Biffle: guitar & bass (solos on tracks 2, 5, 8, 11, 13, 14)
Rick Walker: drums
Michael Manring: bass on track 6

Produced by Henry Kaiser
Recorded August 2015 at Gadgetbox Studios, Santa Cruz
Engineered by Jeremy Goody, Patrick Brede
Mixed at Gadgetbox and Megasonic Sound, Oakland

Cover art by Tony Mostrom
Design by Brandy Gale

license

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about

Alan Licht image

Alan Licht New York, New York

Guitarist from Love Child, the Blue Humans, Run On, Text of Light, Lee Ranaldo & the Dust

www.alanlicht.com
alanlicht.tumblr.com

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