Tim Berne, Gregg Belisle-Chi, and Tom Rainey - Yikes Too

The Free Jazz Collective 100

There’s a master’s thesis—or a tawdry Netflix miniseries—to be written about Tim Berne and his serial relationships with amazing, visionary guitarists. Bill Frisell, Nels Cline, Marc Ducret, etc. Berne met guitarist Gregg Belisle-Chi when the latter arranged a Berne composition for solo acoustic guitar (it was something to do during the pandemic) and posted it on Instagram. Berne reached out to Belisle-Chi and soon we had Belisle-Chi’s Koi: Performing the Music of Tim Berne , produced by Berne. Then came their duet record . Now, Belisle-Chi has become one of Berne’s usual suspects on both acoustic and electric guitar.

Belisle-chi has an expansive way of playing the electric, filling the room the way an orchestra does, with a quantity of sound. There’s a touch of proggy goodness in there—which is a treat for this lifetime prog fan. This sort of electric bombast makes for a perfect partner for Berne’s preternaturally strong sax.

The two take Berne’s compositions in a less oblique way than in other settings. It’s always interesting to hear how different agglomerations of players render these compositions. On the disc, we’re given 10 studio tracks and 9 live tracks. Here’s the thing: in a few cases, we hear a tune played in the studio, and then hear the same tune played live. Call me a nerd but I find it FASCINATING to compare versions of the tunes to one another. There’s the obvious differences of improvised chunks, but tempos, dynamics, voicing … it’s all up for grabs. The composition is composed in the moment! And look, I know that this is how our kind of music works—but it’s very cool to see it so explicitly in action. Like seeing the aurora borealis.

I haven’t mentioned Tom Rainey, yet. Not because I want to look away, but because I want to set him aside for high honors. Rainey is characteristically great on Yikes Too, holding the whole garment together with his infinitely long thread of whackity-whack. I’ve loved his stuff forever, but this year I’m feeling something special. In the race for improv MVP of 2025, he’s already at the top of my list. 5 Stars

Yikes Too by Tim Berne