Rik Mercaldi acquired his main electric guitar at age 15 and has been mastering its intricacies ever since. Give him a country song, a three-chord vamp or a funky bass line and he will execute an impressive solo with impeccable tone.
Playing with Last Minute Soulmates at the Towne Crier Cafe in Beacon on Feb. 7, he balanced feeling with technique and made his wah wah effect pedal cry like a baby as he sang along.
“People tell me that I sing, but it’s not conscious and I guess I can’t help it,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to draw undue attention, but sometimes the adrenaline kicks in when you’re playing live, and you lose yourself.”
Though he can rip out ferocious licks up and down the neck, Mercaldi only unleashes the beast at the proper time.
“That’s the goal of a sideman, to make everything sound better,” he says. “It’s not about showboating.”
Delivering tasteful lead guitar parts in an original pop/rock band is one skill, but over the years he has performed a wide range of styles, including the Cosmokaze project, which performs at 8 p.m. on Feb. 20 and every third Thursday at Quinn’s.
The sound is as far out as the name because, unlike the more pat blues and rock that first forged Mercaldi’s sound and style, this instrumental trio improvises for 45 minutes to an hour at a time, like one long jazz solo.
Drummer Todd Guidice produced and engineered the group’s two albums at Roots Cellar Studio in Philipstown.
Regarding the band’s name, which sounds like an exotic cocktail, “we were kicking stuff around with the general feeling of trippy, spacey, astral and the word cosmic came up and Josh [Enslen on bass] blurted it out,” he says. “It’s a cosmic kamikaze if that makes any sense.”
Instead of crashing and burning, the music soars like a Grateful Dead space jam, sometimes gelling into a steady chord pattern and then fading into an ambient wash of sound or a low frequency rumble. Solos can break out at any time.
“It’s not a jam band, we’re doing spontaneous composition,” he says. “We’re like a jazz group with rock instruments.”
No two performances are alike, but they can incorporate “a riff or chordal thing we’ve used before, which works well as a springboard.”
There is plenty of musicality for listeners to latch onto a groove, or pocket, as segments lurch along then morph into a pattern with a strong backbeat.
Exotic sounds augment the mix, including two twangy lap steel guitars, a digital sitar effect and found backgrounds, like snippets from old films and answering machines. An electromagnetic EBow device transforms the guitar’s timbre into an otherworldly, high-pitched buzz with sustain for forever.
Mercaldi moved to Beacon in 2016 from Hastings-on-Hudson, his first suburban stop. Visiting Dogwood (now Cooper’s) sealed the deal.
Cosmokaze is a 180-degree departure from Last Minute Soulmates and The Subterraneans, which gigged all over the city and New Jersey during the 1990s. They’re still around, putting together a concept album.
The Jersey native also spent five years playing mandolin and other acoustic instruments with Yonkers-based Spuyten Duyvil, which made a name in folk music circles touring the country and performing at big festivals before disbanding in 2018.
“I need to scratch every musical itch,” he says. “I love [Cosmokaze’s] creative freedom and relaxed pace; I don’t need to be out there wanking a solo all the time. At home, this is something I would be noodling with, so now I’m just doing that in front of an audience.”
Quinn’s is located at 330 Main St. in Beacon. Mercaldi also will play a solo set at the Towne Crier Café on Feb. 22. See cosmokaze.bandcamp.com.
I encountered Cosmokaze quite by accident. I was a pandemic transplant from New York City and still only knew a handful of people. One evening after a hectic workday, I popped into Quinn’s for a quick beer. As the band began to play, I was surprised at the sounds that emerged. This was a rock trio, but they flowed like a jazz combo. Visions of Tangerine Dream, prog rock, Krautrock and other freeform but disciplined groups swirled before me.
I stuck around for the entire set — and the following third Thursday, and the third Thursday after that. The music inspired me to design a flyer for the trio, followed by more graphics, including album cover art. I’ve recorded and edited a few performances, including a fantastic set at Bethel Woods before Yes and Deep Purple played.
It was amazing to make this artistic connection here in Beacon, and it continues to reverberate. I’m still excited every third Thursday because I don’t know what will happen on that small, magical stage. But I know Rik, Todd and Josh will go somewhere I, and they, have never heard before.