Though presenting new music by new artists generally requires a relative inclination to the young, it is just as important for us at Squealer to include experienced, weathered musicians who contribute to the “new music” landscape in (necessarily) different ways, but with just as much vigour, just as much excitement and just as much exploration.
Flying a particularly greying, grizzled flag for maturity is Bill Orcutt. His musical history starts in the mid-80’s, through to Miami’s seminal(ly abrasive) Harry Pussy of ‘92-‘97 - most likely his best-known work - and a long gap for raising a family in the early 00’s. In 2009, however, Orcutt found his compositional feet again and began releasing solo material under his own name.
A bizarre, acerbic take on twanging blues guitar, Orcutt’s material traces a linear thread from the expressive and evocative confessionals of its ancestors. He testifies the same in interview with Wire Magazine in October 2011 (“If you’re gonna play the blues you have to somehow address the fact that you’re not Robert Johnson”). Orcutt’s records, however, in all their impulsiveness and possessed clamour, are not unsettling in the ghostly and spectral Johnson (or Patton, or James, or House) way, but more like the wild free-jazz of The Art Ensemble of Chicago or Ascension - an aural overload, with the timbres of old America and the sensitivity of a well-versed, well-travelled musician.
New album How The Thing Sings is available through Editions Mego now.
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