The most surprising news about Lost Time—the two-track collaboration between Kid Millions and Greg Fox—is that it took so long to happen. Millions and Fox are the two busiest drummers in experimental music, bounding between projects with the zeal and energy of potent valence electrons. Both have bands that pushed them into prominence. For Millions, it’s the pantheistic weirdo crew Oneida, known for extended adventures into rock’s most distant corners, both onstage and off. For Fox, it’s the flinty black metal band Liturgy, known for testing the boundaries of that genre and irking its old guard in the process.
But Millions and Fox treat those acts as launch pads, not landing pads. Fox, for instance, leads his own freak-out act Guardian Alien, is the newest member of Zs, and collaborates with Ben Frost, Colin Stetson, and PC Worship. Millions, meanwhile, drums with Spiritualized and Laurie Anderson, helms the drum ensemble Man Forever, and released duo records with J. Spaceman and Borbetomagus’ Jim Sauter just last year. Their collision seems, then, inevitable if not overdue, an obviously great idea that each musician had to squeeze into packed dockets.
Lost Time, however, does not sound like an obligation, a date on a calendar meant to be fulfilled. At its best, it feels like an opportunity for two daring drummers to explore with and without their kits. Recorded during two workaday sessions in 2014, these dual tracks find the pair testing diametric impulses with equal zeal—building and filling a sidelong groove for the meditative "Post Encounter Effect" and treating grooves as anathema for the explosive "Telegy/Time Lapse". For both pieces, Fox and Millions step behind and then away from their sets, accessorizing the "drum duo" concept with guitars and electronics, samples and screams. The choice affords Lost Time unexpected approachability. The first side speaks as much to Lightning Bolt as it does to Albert Ayler, the second as much to Swans as Max Neuhaus.
You can practically hear each drummer’s enthusiasm for simply playing (but not playing simply) on "Telegy/Time Lapse", a 20-minute opening marvel of momentum and cooperation. A murmur of looped electronics yields to an outburst of drums, with Millions and Fox interlocking their very heavy, very fast, very long rolls and fills. They continually escalate and de-escalate, creating a seesaw that emphasizes just how meticulous and powerful they can get. Sometimes, they stop altogether; other times, they play so hard you wonder how they know where each limb will land. Instead of two titans squaring off, the sound suggests a spirited conversation between equals, each offering distinct but complementary voices and thoughts on a shared interest.
Fox has studied with Milford Graves, a pioneering jazz drummer who has, in recent decades, used heart monitors to help build musical frameworks. Midway through "Telegy/Time Lapse", the drums disappear, replaced temporarily by the amplified heartbeats of Fox and Millions and, soon, solid sheets of industrial noise. When the drums return, they slyly mirror those biomechanical rhythms, suggesting that both of these musicians were born to do exactly this. When the track hits its ecstatic peak, Fox howls and hums maniacally behind the beats. The élan is visceral, contagious.
But where that first piece is immediate and demanding, "Post Encounter Effect" attempts to be immersive and hypnotic to the point that it borders on soporific. Fox and Millions begin with a wide, swinging beat, syncopated cymbals splashing over a regimen of tom-toms. For 20 minutes, this rhythm sits mostly still. Meanwhile, they saturate the space between their kits with a panoply of drones—loose-stringed acoustics and phosphorescent electrics, muzzled trumpet and squelching synthesizers. The hope, it seems, is to commingle the ideas of opposing minimalists Steve Reich and La Monte Young by balancing the eternal tones of the latter with the rhythmic latticework of the former. But the idea is more interesting than the execution, itself a listless piece whose subtlety morphs into tedium long before the track expires.
In recent years, two other drummers, Jon Mueller and Jonathan Kane, have applied similar principles to much more dynamic work in their respective bands Death Blues and February. Perhaps because it seems so redundant, "Post Encounter Effect" feels like a cerebral exercise for Millions and Fox. They are much better when the exchange is physical, as on "Telegy/Time Lapse", a piece so urgent and expressive it’s a shame the side ever ends.
