You may know Grammy-winning guitarist and producer Adrian Quesada from his myriad and diverse projects like the nine-piece Latin funk ensemble Grupo Fantasma or Brownout—a gritty Fantasma side project that gained notoriety covering Black Sabbath (as Brown Sabbath) and Public Enemy (Fear of a Brown Planet)—and, more recently, Black Pumas, his critically acclaimed collaboration with vocalist and guitarist Eric Burton. But his most recent outing, Boleros Psicodélicos, an homage to the psychedelicized late-1960s take on the classic Cuban-cum-Mexican genre bolero, is one of his more interesting musical diversions.
The term bolero is loosely translated as “ballad,” although it refers to a specific type of song form derived from traditional folk poetry. As a genre, bolero is a dramatic, semi-theatrical musical style that got something of a facelift in the psychedelic era when groups like Los Angeles Negros and Los Pasteles Verdes reinterpreted them on more modern instruments like electric guitars—drenched in reverb, obviously—and combo organs, although without venturing too far from the music’s more traditional, romantic roots.
Adrian Quesada, iLe - Mentiras Con Cariño (Official Video)
On Boleros Psicodélicos, Quesada uses that classic bolero repertoire as a starting point, but the album is no revivalist tribute or throwback. He wrote most of the tracks, experimented with new timbres and technologies, and his approach is thoroughly modern. He’ll grab vintage gear—and run it through tape, too—if that’s what’s needed to get the sounds he’s after, but he’s not averse to digital effects and plug-ins, and the entire project, ultimately, was recorded inside the box.
“I do have a full analog setup, but I’m no purist with what the process is,” Quesada says. “That was true with this record, in particular, because Boleros Psicodélicos was pretty much recorded remotely. I started everything myself, sent it out to people, and they sent me files back. It was done during the pandemic, so nobody came into the studio.”
The digital process makes collaboration—not to mention editing—infinitely easier, although for Quesada it isn’t always the most productive route for finding the ideal tone.
“I would be dialing knobs for two hours and then I thought, ‘What if I just run it to tape?’ I ran it to tape—that takes 5 minutes—and I’m like, ‘That’s the sound I was hearing.’”
“Plug-ins and whatnot are really pretty amazing now, as is the modeling you can get digitally,” he says, “but man, there were times where I’d spend two hours pulling up all the modeling and plug-ins to get that tape-and-tubes sound. I would be dialing knobs for two hours and then I thought, ‘What if I just run it to tape?’ I ran it to tape—that takes 5 minutes—and I’m like, ‘That’s the sound I was hearing.’”
Boleros Psicodélicos is also dripping in rivers of tremolo. The effect wasn’t that prevalent on the classic psychedelic boleros, but Quesada couldn’t resist. “I love everything with tremolo,” he says. “I put tremolo on everything.” As a general approach, he goes for the best sound, regardless of the technology most aficionados insist is the only way to achieve it. For tremolo—and despite a studio full of classic amps loaded with an assortment of vintage warbles—he often found himself leaning on the completely digital Strymon Flint.
“If I had to keep one pedal on my pedalboard, that would be it,” he says about the device. “I do have a lot of different tremolos in the studio as well—and you can’t beat amp tremolo, a lot of those just sound so musical and a lot more natural—but on the record I used the Strymon Flint a lot. It’s so easy and practical, and has color.”
Adrian Quesada recorded Boleros Psicodélicos during the pandemic, collaborating remotely with Marc Ribot, Ileana Mercedes Cabra Joglar, Gaby Moreno, Money Mark, and many others.
On Boleros Psicodélicos, you can hear Quesada’s tremolo in action in the subtle orchestrated textures he employs on tracks like “Mentiras Con Cariño,” which features Grammy-winning vocalist Ileana Mercedes Cabra Joglar, otherwise known as iLe, as well as the lush—that’s “lush” in a very mid-’70s Holiday Inn-hotel-bar kind of way—“El León.” He uses other tones not usually associated with bolero as well, like a wah for the beautiful and catchy leads on “El Muchacho De Los Ojos Tristes” and an acoustic on “Tus Tormentas.”
Throughout his career, and regardless of genre, he’s always gravitated toward grittier, complex sounds. “With guitar, I’ve always liked a tiny bit of dirt on there,” Quesada says. “Whether it’s pushing an amp to get the sound… tubes crunching up is a very appealing sound to me, although I also like the sound of tape reacting. I like those artifacts that come with it. I don’t like the guitar to be too smooth. I prefer fuzz tones over overdrive. I like things that have a little more color to them. Even if they can be a little bit abrasive, that’s where I gravitate. I like things with character like that.”
“I don’t like the guitar to be too smooth. I prefer fuzz tones over overdrive. I like things that have a little more color to them—even if they can be a little bit abrasive, that’s where I gravitate. I like things with character like that.”
A good example of that on Boleros Psicodélicos—at least, just a touch—is Marc Ribot’s guest performance on “Hielo Seco,” which also features Money Mark of Beastie Boys fame.
“Marc was a big influence on me,” Quesada says. “When I was in college and really discovering this music, he had done a project called Los Cubanos Postizos, which means ‘the Prosthetic Cubans.’ He was doing Cuban music and it was almost traditional—the rhythms were correct—but he was playing electric guitar with a tremolo. You know, my use of the tremolo, honestly, especially in lead playing, a lot of that came from hearing him play. Everything was overdriven with a tremolo. It was just such a different approach to Latin music and his leads were so unique. You could tell he knew jazz, but he wasn’t quite playing like that. It was really outside the box.”
Adrian Quesada’s Gear
Adrian Quesada’s pedalboard currently has eight pedals, but the MVP is his Strymon Flint. “If I had to keep one pedal on my pedalboard, that would be it,” he says.
Guitars
- Fender Parallel Universe Jazz Strat
- Fender Custom Shop Telecaster with humbucker in neck position
- Gibson ES-446
- Gibson ES-125
Amps
- 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb
- 1972 Fender Deluxe Reverb
- Fender Princeton Handwired Reissue
- Fender Tweed Champ
- Fender Twin
- Gibson GA-20
Effects
- Strymon Flint
- Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Nano
- Dunlop Cry Baby Wah
- Line 6 ToneCore Echo Park
- Catalinbread Epoch Boost
- Catalinbread Echorec
- EarthQuaker Devices Park Fuzz Sound
- TC Electronic PolyTune 2
Strings & Picks
- D’Addario Super Light Plus (.095–.044) or .010 (.010–.046) sets
- Green Dunlop Tortex .88 mm
Coming full circle, it was a fortuitous glitch in the matrix that led to Ribot appearing on the record. “I hit a wall when I was recording ‘Hielo Seco,’” Quesada continues. “I was going to play guitar on it myself and I was getting tired. I was like, ‘What can I do to finish this song?’ I was working in my yard one day and the YouTube algorithm spit out one of those Marc Ribot Los Cubanos Postizos songs. I thought, ‘He would be perfect for the song,’ and luckily, he did it.”
Often in the studio, Quesada gets those distorted sounds plugging direct into the board and recording to tape, without bothering with an amp. He also prefers the sound of a tape reel that’s been used a few times, which he feels adds character.
“I like what it does after you reuse it a little bit,” he says. “You tame some of the high end and that’s favorable to me for some stuff like drums and guitars. I reuse a reel for just enough—to where I start hearing a little bit too much degradation—and then I get a new one. But I will recycle them for quite a few runs though. It’s like breaking in guitar strings—by the third or fourth show you realize they’re not as stiff anymore.”
Adrian Quesada fingerpicks a Gibson ES-125 archtop in this outtake from the music video for the lead single, “Mentiras Con Cariño,” from Boleros Psicodélicos.
Photo by César Berrios
One hallmark of Quesada’s approach to production, which stands out on Boleros Psicodélicos, is his exceptional sense of orchestration. He brings in subtle touches, often for just a single verse or repeated figure—like a fingerpicked part or a mild tremolo warble—that, although understated and hard to catch on first listen, transforms an arrangement.
He approaches each composition with a concept in his head and records the basic tracks with those ideas in mind—usually to give the vocalist guideposts to work with—and then revisits the entire arrangement once the vocals are complete.
“I was working in my yard one day and the YouTube algorithm spit out one of those Marc Ribot Los Cubanos Postizos songs. I thought, ‘He would be perfect for the song,’ and luckily, he did it.”
“I hear most of the arrangement already before a singer even does anything,” he says. “But I try not to overdo it. It’s a real fine balance you have to find. I want to put enough color in there for the singer to react to and to feel certain moments that I want accented, but, also, I don’t want to overpower. I want to leave room to hear what they do. It’s like two stages, and when I get the files back, I usually go in there and strip stuff away—I put some stuff back, too—and use their vocals to figure out where I can bring certain things out, but also not step on the vocals. It’s almost like cooking: I try and wait for the end to really add everything.”
That intricate production style—as amazing as it sounds on record—can be something of a disadvantage when trying to perform the music live. What gets left out? What is essential? Does the music suffer? That was a particular challenge for Boleros Psicodélicos, because the music was never intended to be played in front of an audience.
Casada at his Electric Deluxe Studios in South Austin, Texas.
Photo by Jackie Lee Young
“We did some radio promotion, and that was the first time these songs had been played live,” Quesada says. “We had to rehearse and commit to what parts we wanted to keep and what we wanted to scrap. It was a good challenge to get in there and decide what was really crucial. Obviously, there are going to be parts that are not going to be there—because I can’t have a 20-piece band—but honestly, when I’m making an album like that, I try to imagine somewhat what it would be like if we were together in a room. I try to make it seem somewhat natural or human. I don’t like to record 40 guitars just to do it.”
That’s similar to how the Black Pumas’ album was recorded as well. “With Black Pumas, it was almost like night and day. When we made that album, we hadn’t really played live, either. But once we started to play live, all the songs took on another life. It’s almost like completely different arrangements from the album.”
“It’s almost like cooking: I try and wait for the end to really add everything."
Pulling together those influences—which is drawn from years of experience and a well-defined aesthetic sense—is ultimately how Quesada puts the pieces together. It’s how he can take an older, beloved genre like bolero and coax out something that’s contemporary and relevant, and real.
“When I started the Boleros album, I had a playlist of inspiration songs I was using at first to get off the ground, but honestly, I didn’t want to get stuck making a covers album or any sort of carbon copy—you can just go back and hear the originals. I used the older music as a template, but then I ran with it. I tried to make it a little bit more varied and a little truer to myself than just covering it exactly. After a while, I stopped referencing the old stuff and was just off on my own. Obviously, it’s still in the ballpark referencing the older material, but I wasn’t trying to copy anything.”
Adrian Quesada's Boleros Psicodélicos in KUTX Studio 1A
A rare live performance recorded for KUTX in Austin, Texas. Check out Quesada’s unusual all-upstroke picking technique on the first and third songs. The drummer is Jay Mumford, aka J-Zone, an accomplished hip-hop artist. “I remember following him on social media,” Quesada says. “I love that he’s someone who came from a hip-hop production background and then started approaching the drums like that. The dedication he put into being a good drummer was really inspiring. I was watching him and watching him, and then he started posting videos and I was like, ‘This guy is really good.’ During the pandemic, I was looking for somebody to help remote record some drums, so I just hit him up.”
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Philadelphia-raised metal guitarist Xander Raymond Charles has built himself quite a following on YouTube—his subscribers now number over 120,000. But when he’s not YouTubing, he’s playing live, and earlier this year, he went out on a national tour with metalcore artist elijah. Charles formed half of elijah’s brutal dual guitar section, along with Brandon Kyle. Ahead of a recent Nashville gig, the two shredders sat down with PG’s Chris Kies to share what they packed for the road trip.
Brought to you by D’Addario.
Rooting Around
Charles’ go-to metal machine is this Fender Jim Root partscaster with a 2014 Strat body and 2018 neck. He put in a pair of Root’s signature EMG Daemonum pickups, then pulled out the neck one out of “boredom” while on tour. He’s also replaced a lot of the factory hardware with odds and ends from Lowes or Home Depot. Like most of the duo’s guitars, the partscaster is tuned to drop C, and this one rocks a set of Nashville-made Stringjoy .012–.062 strings.
From the Bench to First String
Kyle’s main ride is this ESP LTD TE-401, which started its life as a backup but has graduated to be Kyle’s No. 1. It’s an affordable model from ESP’s line that Kyle maintains is one of the best-sounding guitars he’s ever played. He loves the playability and feel, which are similar to the Fenders he grew up playing. Obviously, the EMG pickups give it more gas than other T-styles.
Backup Warhorse
This single-humbucker, JM-style ESP LTD XJ-1 HT is another warhorse in Kyle’s stable and serves as a backup during elijah’s current set. It’s equipped with D’Addario XL .012–.056s.
Low and Long
This stunning Squier Vintage Modified Baritone Jazzmaster can handle all of Charles’ low-end demands with its 30" scale length.
Fresh from the Lab
Charles was gifted this 7-string Cerberus prototype, which is geared up with locking tuners, a single Guitarmory Pickups humbucker, and a 30" scale length.
Quad Power
Both Charles and Kyle are running Neural DSP Quad Cortexes, and after some testing, both decided to roll with a profile of an EVH 5150 loaded with EL34s. For clean sounds in the set, they lean on a Friedman profile. Sennheiser wireless systems let both guitarists cut loose onstage.
Eric Deaton - Oxford Mississippi
“It’s all about the one,” says Eric Deaton. “You’ve got your one-chord drone, so it’s just a groove and very funky—like James Brown’s bass players.”
Photo by Chris Johnson
Eric Deaton got his break one night when trance-blues patriarch Junior Kimbrough’s bassist didn’t show up at Junior’s juke joint, in the rolling hills outside of Holly Springs, Mississippi. Deaton was already a regular guest there, on guitar, but after he subbed on 4-string that evening, he became a staple of the low end for members of the region’s revered Kimbrough and Burnside musical families, and many other Magnolia State blues and roots players. In fact, if you’ve spent time in the bars and blues festivals of the middle and deeper South, and you haven’t seen the longhaired, cheerful Deaton bobbing to the beat, you probably had your eyes closed.
Schooled by the Kimbroughs and Burnsides, Deaton’s specialty is the rumbling, loping, snake-charmer’s pulse of north Mississippi hill country, where a subgenre of blues that lays bare the style’s deepest African roots has taken hold for generations. “It’s all about the one,” he explains. “You’ve got your one-chord drone, so it’s just a groove and very funky—like James Brown’s bass players. People talk about how hypnotic it is, and that’s true. Playing it, you feel yourself lifting off a little bit. It takes you to a whole ’nother level. It’s psychedelic!”
While Deaton, who also fronts his own band on guitar, has been a fixture on that circuit almost since he arrived from Raleigh, North Carolina, in the early ’90s with a powerful yearning to play the blues in the land where it began, his profile has risen sharply over the past three years. Major-league raw-and-dirty blues fan Dan Auerbach drafted Deaton for a host of productions, including Jimmy “Duck” Holmes’ Grammy-nominated Cypress Grove, Hank Williams, Jr.’s Rich White Honky Blues, two albums by Robert Finley, and the Black Keys’ Delta Kream. Auerbach also brought Deaton to play bass on the Keys’ 2022 world tour, and special dates to promote his Easy Eye Sound label’s 2023 blues compilation, Tell Everybody.
“I’d never been in front of an audience of that size prior to that, so it was just an amazing experience, to see how a big tour like that is put together and all,” says Deaton, who plays a Blues King PJ made by St. Blues in Memphis. “And musically, it’s been a lot of fun because I am playing the same basslines I’ve been playing since I was 18, but doing that in arenas and Red Rocks and places like that. Because Dan and Pat [Carney, Black Keys drummer] made me a featured artist on the Delta Kream record, we got to share in a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album, too.”
— Ted DrozdowskiDezron Douglas - New York, New York
“To be honest with you, I'm never worried about taking a solo. You know, that's really not my job.,” says Dezron Douglas
Photo by Andrew Blackstein
Dezron Douglas is acutely aware of what he needs to do on any given night. Whether he’s playing challenging modern jazz with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane at Birdland or he’s deep in a spacey horn-fueled funk jam at Red Rocks with Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio, the vibration, according to Douglas, is the same. “Too many bass players are thinking about soloing. And you can hear that when they’re playing,” he Douglas shortly before a recent Birdland hit with Coltrane (who he has been working with for 20 years). “To be honest with you, I’m never worried about taking a solo. You know, that’s not my job.”
Douglas’ style is rooted in jazz, but not bound by it. He was mentored in college by legendary saxophonist Jackie McLean and was taught that real music education needs to happen outside of the classroom. “Jackie let me out of school for my first tour ever,” remembers Douglas. That tour was with guitarist Johnnie Marshall and it was a brutal eight-week run through the chitlin circuit. Young Dezron was ready to solo and show his new employer what he could do. “I took a solo. The crowd was clapping and whatnot. And then for the next week and a half, he didn't give me another solo,” laughs Douglas. It was a tough lesson, but taught Douglas that his role needed to be supportive above all else.
Douglas has released a string of solo albums since 2012, led his own quartet at the Village Vanguard, and developed as a composer. His latest album, Atalaya, is a deep portrait of an artist who has not only an original voice on his instrument, but in his tunes. That is increasingly rare in today’s jazz scene, where there’s a trend to value obsessive technicality over melody and groove.
In 2021, after the death of bassist Tony Markellis, Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio chose Douglas to join his solo band. “Tony and Trey had a report for 30 years,” says Douglas. “And, you know, you can't recreate that. All you can do is learn the material, pay homage, and create something different of your own.” Douglas’ intrinsic versatility has been a perfect fit with Anastasio’s soul-funk outfit. “With Trey, I get to be myself,” he says.
—Jason Shadrick
Paul Bryan - Los Angeles, California
“With the bass, you’re the bus driver, musically,” Paul Bryan explains. “It’s natural to keep your eye on the ball in terms of rhythm, harmony, arrangement, dynamics … developing spaces at the core of all of those things.”
Paul Bryan’s new album, Western Electric, is a journey through melody and groove in service of a futuristic jazz-rock sound that references classic jazz, dub, and post-rock. Bryan’s groovy and lyrical electric bass welds musical elements, intertwining with drummer Jay Bellerose, saxophonist Josh Johnson, and overdubbed synths, all often generously dosed with effects. Each sound is in service of a bigger picture—the kind of cohesive vision he seems to bring to each project.
“With the bass, you’re the bus driver, musically,” Bryan explains. “It’s natural to keep your eye on the ball in terms of rhythm, harmony, arrangement, dynamics … developing spaces at the core of all of those things.” And he does so on a wide variety of projects. Over the course of his career, Bryan’s played bass on recordings by many artists, including Norah Jones and Mavis Staples, and is in Aimee Mann’s band in addition to having produced five of her albums. He’s also a member of the Los Angeles creative-music scene, where he’s active as a player, engineer, and producer.
As much as Western Electric is a product of that fertile scene—which also includes Johnson and Bellerose—it’s so clearly from Bryan’s brain. The Fender Jazz and Jag player is an obvious record head, citing Jo Jones and Milt Hinton’s Percussion and Bass and Sonny Rollins’Way Out West as references—both of which sound nothing like Bryan’s record to a casual listener. But the concept is clear, foregrounding the relationship of his melodic, effects-heavy playing and Bellerose’s deep grooves.
And beyond the playing, Bryan approaches the album’s sonic details like a dub master: “Once you've heard something for 20 seconds, your brain goes, ‘Okay, I know what that is.’ So, I’ll do some cool reverb trick or add some cool low-end thump. I’m always trying to reset the table throughout the song.”
—Nick Millevoi
Sébastien Provençal - Montreal Quebec
“It’s all about notes duration, my intentions behind the notes, the tones, and being blessed to play in a band with my best friends, who are amazing musicians,” says Sébastien Provençal.
Photo by Vincent Gravel
It was pouring rain when Population II took the stage in Montreal’s Parc La Fontaine on June 23. The hometown trio were headlining a progressive celebration for Québec independence on the eve of St.-Jean-Baptiste Day—the Francophone Canadian province’s equivalent of the Fourth of July. A couple hundred people splashed around in the swampy grass to catch the band’s free set, and it was immediately evident why: Population II are one of the most exciting Canadian bands of the decade.
In a trio, all members are especially responsible for the band’s success or failure, but that feels particularly true for Population II, whose daring arrangements and sonic explorations dart between post-punk, jazz, garage, new wave, psych- and prog-rock, and more. Twenty-nine-year-old bassist Sébastien Provençal, sporting a 1968 Fender Telecaster Bass routed through a playground of pedals into a 1972 Hiwatt DR201 and blasted out an Ampeg 8x10, establishes and carries arrangements forward while vocalist/drummer Pierre-Luc Gratton and guitarist/organist Tristan Lacombe thrash and spark around him. Amid the storm in Parc La Fontaine, the combination was euphoric.
Provençal’s opening bass line on “R.B.,” off of this year’s EP Serpent Échelle, is an instant classic, perfectly setting the tone for the song’s mad ramble. The riff is elastic and fluid, but it’s also martial and commanding. This is the heart of Provençal’s playing: It’s playful and exploratory, but executed with such authority and precision that it feels industrial, ruthless. See also his introductory synth-bass gambit on “Orlando,” the stunning opener from their 2023 LP, Électrons libres, du québec. Provençal’s tones often mutate and morph between movements within single songs—it’s clear he puts a ton of thought into not just his arrangements, but the textures they’re presented with. “It’s all about notes duration, my intentions behind the notes, the tones, and being blessed to play in a band with my best friends, who are amazing musicians,” Provençal says. “With this in mind, my style is intentionally bold with a strong sense of vulnerability.”
Provençal’s top influences also offer a vivid picture of his style. Bootsy Collins and Aston “Family Man” Barrett knock up against punk Mike Watt, Can’s Holger Czukay, Yes’ Chris Squire, synth-rock pioneer Simeon Coxe, jazz-prog wizard Hugh Hopper, and Miles Davis’ fusion specialist Michael Henderson (“The best to ever do it on the electric bass,” says Provençal). Excellent bassists have been making smart, challenging weirdo art with their instrument for decades, carving out new meanings of the word “bassist,” but I’m grateful that I get to hear Sébastien Provençal do it here in Montreal, pushing music and this province, and this country, to weirder, cooler places.
— Luke Ottenhof