MARCO BENEVENTO w/ special guest MIKE DILLON & PUNKADELICK

Hallucinatory keyboard wizard Marco Benevento performs live at The Back Room @ Colectivo in Milwaukee, WI on Thursday, March 16 to celebrate the release of his latest studio effort, simply titled, Benevento. The 11-track collection presents 40-plus minutes of small-batch psychedelia, bubbled up from his home studio at the base of the Catskill Mountains in Woodstock, NY.The album’s title nods to Paul McCartney‘s first solo record and like Macca’s eponymous release, Benevento is a similarly loose, low-key affair where song sketches and sunrise jams share space with more constructed tracks. Benevento plays all of the instruments (with few exceptions), while also producing and engineering the recording.

In contrast to Let It Slide, Benevento’s minimalistic 2019 full-length collaboration with producer Leon Michels, his latest 11-song studio effort is heavily saturated and exploratory, built from countless layers of keyboards, bounced to four-track tape. Deeply indebted to the West African psychedelia of artists such as Francis Bebey, Kiki Gyan and William Onyeabor, the songs are rhythmic and repetitive, built into thick mosaics of sound.

Recording was conducted amidst stacks of gear in varying states of repair, all fodder for inspiration during long quarantine-dictated solo jam sessions. In this environment, Benevento unlocked his archives, mining for unfinished song ideas, and surrendered to the machines, coaxing beats and melodies from both go-to favorites and gear that had long been collecting dust.

“It was wall-to-wall keyboards, mics, amps, drums, the place was about to explode,” Benevento laughs. “Looking back, my studio was a good place to be trapped while the world was shutdown. I was surrounded by tape machines and gear. The album became a psychedelic window into my studio and my brain, a document of a crazy dude losing his mind in the woods and maybe regaining it.”

For his performance in Milwaukee, Benevento will be joined by his band with bassist Karina Rykman and drummer Chris Corsico. Acclaimed experimental-rock trio Mike Dillon & Punkadelick opens the evening. More information and tickets available HERE.