Bill Orcutt
A Hisory of Every One
Ok, it's been a while since I posted, due to various factors, but now I'm back with what is definitely the strangest (and hardest to classify) album that I've heard all year. Bear in mind, I am quite considerably drunk at the moment, so that may affect my judgement.
Alright, then, Bill Orcutt. I wasn't sure what to expect from this record - on the one hand, Orcutt was in Harry Pussy, and I fucking hate Harry Pussy. On the other, he plays a guitar with only two strings on at least one of these songs, and as someone who regularly plays with less than the recommended number of strings, I thought I should give it a look/listen. So I gave it a look/listen, and I'm glad that I did. Orcutt's new record is made up entirely of covers of old American standards, but there's nothing standard about the way he plays them. In his hands, songs like "When You Wish Upon A Star" and "White Christmas" become strange, distorted (de)compositions. He takes some of the most familiar songs in the western world and deconstructs them until they bear almost no relation to their original forms. His guitar spits out strange, jumbled fragments, semi-bluesy note clusters, dissonant skeletons somewhere in between John Fahey's acoustic work and John Fahey's electric work. Sometimes a few notes will come together to form something beautiful and melodious, as in "Spanish is the Loving Tongue," but more often he sounds like Blind Willie Johnson having a stroke - in a really, really good way. Occasionally, Orcutt's voice intrudes, adding eerie whoops and hollers to the jangling guitar.
The comparisons are obvious - Marc Ribot, Jandek, John Zorn - but Orcutt is his own musician, and he plays like noone else could. I won;t give this album a rating, partly because I'm currently too pissed to trust my own judgement, but also because I really don;t think I can reduce this music to a simple score out of ten. One thing's for sure, though - this will be one of my albums of the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment