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)

Bill Orcutt - A New Way to Pay Old Debts

Bill Orcutt
A New Way to Pay Old Debts
(2009, Palilalia)
RIYL = Derek Bailey, Ekkehard Ehlers, Stefan Neville

How to explain the epically insane solo guitar dirges of Mr. Bill Orcutt...? Somehow – I don’t know how honestly – Orcutt has twisted and contorted the neck, strings and body his guitar into a manic blitz of hyper fractured blues instrumentals that obliterate not only everything you thought about what it is to play the blues, but what it is to play the guitar. His playing is so violently virtuosic, so prickled and cuttingly sharp, one imagines that sliding a white piece of paper underneath his frets would produce the same results as would a paper shredder. The playing is maddeningly aggressive and incredibly unique to the point of Orcutt meandering into some new invention of guitar splatter; some sublevel of blues guitar that scrapes away at the gutters ceaselessly, harsh and relentless, noodled straight into the psyche. On the opening track from the B side, “My Reckless Parts,” Orcutt even adds his own brand of vocals to the mix in the form of some birdlike caws. Such a blur of great ideas, intense playing and hardcore musicianship fashioned through a labyrinth of fingers and strings. At just over a half hour, A New Way to Pay Old Debts is an ungodly revelation of mammoth proportions and definitely worth digging into. Astounding.

-Thistle