If the massive resurgence of fuzzy, static-laden, shoegaze-y music in the past five years is any indication, music fans love noise. But Nick Millevoi, a key figure in several projects before this, isn’t reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine in the slightest. Instead, his frenetic twelve-string compositions owe much more to the No Wave scene of ‘70s/80s New York, a flash-in-the-pan group of musicians who used noise, minimal structure, and sometimes utter intimidation as their claim to notoriety. The noisiness found on Millevoi’s Black Figure of a Bird offers virtually nothing in terms of the warmth, delicacy, or etherealness that’s expected from today’s shoegaze trend-followers. In fact, the title of the last track, “Nothing Forms a Liquid”, might be a perfect descriptor of what’s going on here. Millevoi’s lone guitar is all treble, a chiming, brittle tonality that maps out into a dozen angles at once. His compositions are fiercely bare-bones, but with an undeniable life-blood churning somewhere at their core.

“Warm Green Disks” shows something of Millevoi’s jazz leanings, as well as a serious King Crimson vibe (Larks’ Tongues in Aspic era), in its constant, spidery movement up and down his freakishly-tuned scales, before building into a fuller, more atonal onslaught. This structure becomes a pattern, consistently finding new variations over the course of the record’s brief tracklist. “Life in Ice” offers a similar chordal fury interspersed with noise-making that gives you, quite chillingly, the effect of ice cracking and splintering off beneath your feet. “What Sunlight Does Make It Through” is about as gentle as the record gets, with spacey swaths that grow increasingly more tense and effects-laden. “Bruxer” is like a Greg Ginn solo pushed to its limit and looped for a minute and a half, and “Nothing Forms a Liquid” experiments with excessively-overdriven pinch harmonics.

Black Figure of a Bird isn’t for everyone; it really only caters to that specific set of listeners who enjoy atonal guitar experiments. But those who feel themselves a part of that category will undoubtedly find these tunes both visceral and fascinating.

Black Figure of a Bird by Nick Millevoi

Tonight the North Lawrence Midnight Singers will be pulling into The Station for a night of folk and Americana of yesteryear. The Midnight Singers are a well-oiled harmonizing machine both live and on record, producing sauntering ballads that go great with a Southern sunset and a stiff cocktail. Each song for these folk chameleons highlights a different influence from Presley and Petty to contemporaries like Vetiver and Magnolia Electric Co. Last year they released the well-received Last Great Saturday Night, which was one of Philadelphia Inquirer’s Dan DeLuca’s Top 10 Local Releases for 2010. Carrying on the folk with strings tradition is opener On The Water, the impressive side project of Da Comrade’s Fletcher Van Vliet. On The Water has a wonderful contrast to it akin to John Denver and The Muppets’ Rocky Mountain Holiday. Songstress Julia Rainer rounds out the bill. There is no better cure for the rainy day blues then rainy night folk. The Station, 1550 McKean St., 9pm, $5, 21+ (Fletcher Van Vliet Photo by Stephanie Ricci) – Adam G.

Below is the gluttonous and rather grotesque official music video for "Seasickness Pills" from Drink Up Buttercup. WTF!?! – The Deli Staff