Pino Palladino & Blake Mills ft. Sam Gendel & Chris Dave

Blake Mills and Pino Palladino will redefine how you conceptualize a bass-and-guitar duo; after all, they have already redefined the concept of their own instruments. Over the last 40 years, the Cardiff-born Palladino has become one of the most versatile, nuanced, and in-demand bassists in rock, soul, and pop, his work with D’Angelo, John Mayer, Nine Inch Nails, and countless others adding a harmonic sensitivity and musical flexibility to the instrument’s root-building role. And though Mills first emerged as a top-tier singer-songwriter in the Laurel Canyon afterglow, he has become a marquee producer and guitarist, helming Los Angeles’ legendary Sound City and working on records by Bob Dylan, Perfume Genius, Laura Marling, and a holy host of some of music’s most innovative songwriters. His own records, like 2018’s ambient marvel Look and 2023’s slippery Jelly Road, suggest a boundless sense of wonder.

The pair’s 2021 debut, Notes with Attachments, arrived as a delightful surprise, cut across multiple studios and cities over a protracted period. Supported by Chris Dave on drums and Sam Gendel on a spread of sax-related instruments, Notes was lithe and funky, its uncanny rhythms alternately suggesting carnival funhouses and oceanside boardwalks undulating as if caught in a continuous earthquake. The new album That Wasn’t a Dream keys on their camaraderie, Palladino’s intuitive bass and Mills’ new fretless baritone sustainer guitar sharing bits of overlapping melody that interlock like a cat’s cradle. They leave space for friends, from Dave’s minimalist funk to Gendel’s maximalist sax and electronics. The core, though, remains a new sort of bass-and-guitar pairing, wildly hypnotic and elliptical.