Recording: Ben Mike & The Beatles

Artist: Ben Mike & The Beatles

Song: [excerpt]^*

Recorded at The Tranzac (Main Hall), May 25, 2025.

Ben Mike & The Beatles - [excerpt]

So, to get the obvious out of the way: no, they are not those Beatles. And while such a cheeky moniker (and the clear vibes that this was definitely a group of friends having a great time hanging out together) might connote an unseriousness of purpose, there was definitely something interesting going on here. (Also interesting was the fact that a large improvising ensemble playing mostly-drifty music filled up the Tranzac's Main Hall on a Sunday night!)

Perhaps more telling was that for the purposes of this show, the band was billed with "(Orchestra)" tagged to its name, and while Ben Mike, on keyb at the centre of everything, was mostly hidden behind pages of scores, only the other keyboardists were similarly encumbered and there was no obvious direction/conduction going on — though for all that, there was a definite sense of organization at hand, especially in the sense of restraint that was evident for most of the set (although there was some build-up bombast — in a Cage-ean minimalmist sense — as well).

Obviously these folks were familiar with each other as players — there was, for example, a heavy overlap with a different large improvising ensemble I had seen not long before this. And while this brought to mind some attempts to bring compositional order to rock'n'roll chaos I've seen from some similar local friend-orchestras in the past, it was really satisfying to see the physical and conceptual sprawl here (with hints of psych rock, spiritual jazz, and "Thursday Afternoon"-style Eno) expand at the seams yet remain able to contain itself. If you're not going out to the shows where the younger cadres are, you're missing out on something very cool emerging in our midst.

The full ensemble for this show was:

• Ray Goudy, Josh Sparks, Dylan Burrett (Guitars)
• Maxwell Stover, Ben Rositsan, Zack Goldstein (Reeds and Woodwinds)
• Lauren Dillen (Vocals)
• Steven Noronha, Ben Mike, Will Hunt (Keyboards)
• Sara May (Violin)
• Aidan McConnell (Percussion)

^* Does anyone know the title to this piece as a whole? Please leave a comment!