Steve MacLean is a US guitarist, once a member of Doctor Nerve, whose quartet specialises in austere neo-classical rock chamber music of great subtlety. The music is strictly composed with single-minded seriousness. Time signatures abound, 7/4 being a favourite, but more important are the constantly shifting blocks of interlocking rhythms; at times each player is pursuing independent lines and rhythms which magically build up the whole.
There is a cool minimalist breeze which blows through the album, and a key influence is the drifting harmony of Erik Satie; fans of early Henry Cow and Hatfield and the North will also recognise the myriad lines which scurry back and forth around the ensemble. The album takes these influences and feeds them through a minimalist filter. Steve has re-worked his compositional style for this album: 'In the past I designed external systems for composing, in response to a Zen-like denial that what I hear in my head is of any value compared to the infinity of nature, mathematics and abstraction. This is instead music that emanates from inside me, as I search for structure and balance through arrangements and harmony.' These are theme-tunes for a mythical America, mediated through a thoughtful aesthetic that only reveals itself slowly. Meditative, seductive yet hard-edged, this music is a pleasure in a world of competing strident voices.
Steve has played guitar and other instruments since the age of seven. In his teens he worked from time to time with Elliot Schwartz and Malcolm Goldstein at Bowdoin College In Brunswick. He then went on to the University Of Maine, Augusta for jazz/classical guitar/composition classes. In the early 80's he performed with Roswell Rudd Quartet for several years and composed for, and played bass & guitar, with early incarnations of what became Doctor Nerve. He has collaborated with Dr Nerve founder Nick Didkovsky on 'Flies In the Face of Logic', '44 Nerve Events', 'Out To Bomb Fresh Kings' and 'Did Sprinting Die?'. He relocated from NYC to Portland, Maine in the late 80's where he was co-founder of the Portland Experimental Music Collective, and later worked with the avant rock & multimedia group Mercy (now MRC). He continues to compose electronic and instrumental music in his home studio, Mobius, in Portland.
Also available from ReR: Steve's most recent album 'Radial Circuit' (Mobius 0233), another fascinating excursion into small group poetics.