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Three Lights in the Dark
Nelson Devereaux
Label: Youngbloods
Released: 2025
Views: 27
Tracks
1. SUNRISE VISI0N 2. INTERLOD3 3. H3LL YEAH 4. MIDNIGHT DREAM 5. WE ARE NOT SO FAR APART 6. DISTANC3S
Personnel
Album Description
Three Lights in the Dark captures Twin Cities renaissance-man Nelson Devereaux in a state of raw ingenuity across six new exploratory avant-garde jazz works. Joined by percussionist Dave Power (Bathtub Cig) and bassist Cody McKinney (Jake Baldwin, The Early Planets), this debut collection from The Nelson Devereaux Trio tactfully underlines each member’s command of their craft - perfectly captured in one improvised take by engineer Dex Wolfe in his northern Minneapolis studio. Nelson’s reputation as a multi-instrumental secret weapon precedes him - his talents in- studio have afforded him credits and co-signs with the likes of Bon Iver, Paul Cherry, Lizzo, Har Mar Superstar, Craig Finn, and most recently Miley Cyrus for her Something Beautiful EP. When left to his own devices, Nelson can often be found coloring his home studio with vibrant aural experiments; winks of Stereolab, Sakamoto, David Lynch, and Rachmaninov all occupy his canvas alongside shades of jazz legends like John Coltrane or Wayne Shorter. His resulting output is audacious and earnest - records sonically singular and thematically relatable in their meditations of life, death, and existentialism. His previous solo effort infinity (Youngbloods, 2024) blended wired pop with psychedelia, heralded by Bandcamp for its daring poly-chromatic palette. Needless to say, Nelson is a man of many talents to the untrained ear and a man of many thoughts to those taking a deeper listen to what he has to play. Three Lights in the Dark takes a different approach. Whereas infinity was carefully manicured, massaged, and crafted to perfection, Nelson’s newest work was channeled through more primal means. The trio sought to record together untethered to any self- imposed rules, but rather a simple mission of exercising dormant rhythms and melodies lodged within the brains and bones of the three players. Nelson set up his saxophone, woodwinds, and Rube Golberg-like collection of electronics; Dave laid out his assortment of percussive instruments; Cody plugged in his pedal board and adjusted his bass. And from there they played. Whether a blur or some sort of cosmic fugue, their mission was a success. Nelson recalls an innate synergy in the room: “The songs were long-form and the recording process was not initiated with any particular goal. Just play and see what happens. It was fucking awesome. One take, no breaks, and perhaps accompanied with a tasteful nudge of psilocybin, Three Lights in the Dark sees improvisation in pure form. A moment of brilliance; an echo quickly warping into the vacuum of time, its shape expands, contracts, breaks, and contours, exhaling plumes of earthly textures into a wilderness of ghost notes and celestial top-line melodies. Its totality sees a snapshot in sound, a postcard of a day lost in performance that Nelson knows can’t be entirely re-visited but still often ponders: “The music seemed like an extension of my musical abilities - a summation of everything that I loved about music in that moment. It was always true that I had an easier time telling a story through music rather than words. I wonder if that’s true anymore - I don’t know, but I like thinking about it.”
Album uploaded by John Moses
