No lesser a mind than Stephen Hawking once invoked Goldilocks’ search for just-rightness when discussing the very narrow set of parameters necessary to nurture human life. Bill MacKay, on the other hand, knows exactly where his creative comfort zone resides. While the Chicago-based guitarist sounds good in a lot of contexts, the duo setting is his sonic sweet spot. He has made a series of recordings with some very different partners, including roots/drone multi-instrumentalist Nathan Bowles, classical improviser Katinka Kleijn and fellow guitarist Ryley Walker. Each combination sounds as dissimilar from the others as they all do from MacKay’s solo efforts, but they have in common a hybrid vigor that derives from MacKay’s tendency to thrive when he’s in the company of someone else who’s also doing well. Foreign Smokes, however, may top them all.
BCMC is MacKay’s partnership with keyboardist/producer/engineer Cooper Crain, a member of Bitchin’ Bajas, Cave and Mike Reed’s Separatist Party, as well as an essential contributor to recordings by Circuit Des Yeux and Bill Nace. What makes this pairing especially simpatico is the fact that both MacKay and Crain are compositionally minded facilitators, and when you put together two guys who specialize in finishing other people’s thoughts, you’re bound to get some elegantly cohesive wholes.
While each of the four tracks on Foreign Smokes winds through a few moods, the journeys never lag. Throughout, complementarity is key. On “Ripple In High Tide,” Crain’s organ figures wax and wane in low-key but endlessly intriguing fashion around MacKay’s spare, reverberant leads. But on “The Swarm,” it’s the guitarist’s accents that add propulsion and just-so tension to a fetchingly spooky, Ethiopian-tinged keyboard melody. Again and again, each musician creates opportunities for the other to relax and flourish.
—Bill Meyer
