Bill Orcutt - How The Thing Sings

(Editions Mego, 2011)

Bill Orcutt, emasculating once again whole segments of pussy-footing noise musicians with simply an acoustic guitar.  Not that I would call this noise, what Orcutt is doing.  Though I can imagine the noise tag being thrown at him, as much in celebration as antagonism.  Orcutt's playing is hyper-masticated to the point of pulping, acoustic shredding (the term that feels invented for Orcutt's style of playing) that purées notes together in a way that defies easy categorization.  So Orcutt, while stylistically a descendent of Derek Bailey, is operating in a highly individual territory that is, in its genius, beyond any broad genre signifiers.  How The Thing Sings builds upon Orcutt's debut, achieving a greater range between textured, meditative, albeit skewampus blues and mind-twistingly schizophrenic chaos.  It seems that with Orcutt exploring every crevice of his guitar (chirping along with it nonsensically as he does) he has discovered a deep well with infinite returns.

Bill Orcutt - How the Thing Sings - "Lost They Book" (editions mego)