Bill Orcutt (born February 2, 1962) is an American

guitarist A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselve ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

whose work combines elements of

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

, and

free improvisation Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any general rules, instead following the intuition of its performers. The term can refer to both a technique—employed by any musician in any genre—and as a recognizable genre of ...

Biography

Inspired by seeing

Muddy Waters McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913April 30, 1983), better known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues singer-songwriter and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of moder ...

in ''

The Last Waltz ''The Last Waltz'' was a concert by the Canadian-American rock group the Band, held on American Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. ''The Last Waltz'' was advertised as the Band's "farewell concert a ...

'', Orcutt began playing the guitar as a teenager in

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

. An early group, between 1989-1991, was Watt with drummer Tim Koffley. An aborted 2021 release ''It's All Meat'' comprised recordings prior to Watt with Koffley and vocalist Lloyd Johnson, with whom he was also in Miami’s Trash Monkeys. Orcutt is quoted as saying this was "almost a band". In 1992, he formed the band

Harry Pussy Harry Pussy was an American noise rock band from Miami, active from 1992 to 1997. The main members were Bill Orcutt on guitar and vocals and Adris Hoyos on drums and vocals. Other members included Mark Feehan on guitar, later replaced by Dan ...

with his wife, Cuban/American drummer and vocalist Adris Hoyos. The group recorded three LPs and toured the US frequently, often in support of

indie Indie is a short form of "independence" or "independent"; it may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media *Independent media, media free of influence by government or corporate interests *Indie art, fine arts made by artists independent of commer ...

bands like

Sonic Youth Sonic Youth were an American rock band formed in New York City in 1981. Founding members Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar), Thurston Moore (lead guitar, vocals) and Lee Ranaldo (rhythm guitar, vocals) remained together for the entire history of ...

and

Sebadoh Sebadoh () is an American indie rock band formed in 1986 in Northampton, Massachusetts, by Eric Gaffney and Lou Barlow, with multi-instrumentalist Jason Loewenstein completing the line-up in 1989. Barlow co-created Sebadoh as an outlet for his ...

. Their music, which drew from American

no wave No wave was an avant-garde music genre and visual art scene that emerged in the late 1970s in Downtown New York City. The term was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music. Reacting against punk rock's recycling of rock and r ...

hardcore punk Hardcore punk (commonly abbreviated to hardcore or hXc) is a punk rock music genre#subtypes, subgenre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock. Its roots ...

and

free jazz Free jazz, or free form in the early to mid-1970s, is a style of avant-garde jazz or an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventi ...

was influential and "served as a progenitor for the

Noise Noise is sound, chiefly unwanted, unintentional, or harmful sound considered unpleasant, loud, or disruptive to mental or hearing faculties. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrat ...

movement." In 1997 the band dissolved and the couple divorced. Orcutt moved to

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

and took a long hiatus from music (bar the shortlived KKYLP project), returning in 2009, with an LP of solo guitar entitled ''A New Way to Pay Old Debts'' which was well received, ranking third of 2009 in ''

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime fiction, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created and primarily written by the American author and former police reporter David Simon for the cable network HBO. The series premiered o ...

s annual "

Rewind Rewind may refer to: General uses * Rewind, the process of winding magnetic tape inside a cassette or a microfilm reel backwards to a previous point on the reel ** Rewind symbol, a media control symbol indicating tape rewind or analogous operatio ...

" list. His follow-up release ''How the Thing Sings'' was similarly praised, reaching number 3 on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

's ''The Best Outer Sound Albums of 2011''. Orcutt has issued a great many cassettes and singles in highly limited editions, usually through his labels Fake Estates and Palilalia Records. Fake Estates principally covers music produced through Cracked, an open source audio programme which he published in 2016. He describes it as a "free app for Mac OS. It’s a JavaScript library and live coding environment for sound making". Since 2009, Orcutt has toured often appearing at festivals in the US and Europe, including

Hopscotch Hopscotch is a playground game in which players toss a small object, called a lagger, into numbered triangles or a pattern of rectangles outlined on the ground and then hop or jump through the spaces and retrieve the object. It is a children's ...

, Incubate, Le Nouveau Festival du Centre Pompidou,

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (HSB), originally Strictly Bluegrass, is an annual free and non-commercial music festival held the first weekend of October in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California. Conceived and subsidized by San Francisco ven ...

, Donau and Big Ears. Typically a solo performer, Orcutt has also recorded or performed with

Loren Mazzacane Connors Loren Mazzacane Connors (born October 22, 1949) is an American guitarist who has recorded and performed under several different names: Guitar Roberts, Loren Mazzacane, Loren Mattei, and currently Loren Connors. His music has touched on many genre ...

Chris Corsano Chris Corsano is an American improviser based in Chicago, Illinois. Early life Corsano picked up the drums after seeing his half-brother Tony playing. Corsano's first drum set had Animal from the Muppets on the bass, and he largely is self-ta ...

Peter Brötzmann Peter Brötzmann (6 March 1941 – 22 June 2023) was a German jazz saxophonist and clarinetist regarded as a central and pioneering figure in European free jazz. Throughout his career, he released over fifty albums as a bandleader. Amongst his m ...

and

Alan Alan may refer to: People *Alan (surname), an English and Kurdish surname * Alan (given name), an English given name ** List of people with given name Alan ''Following are people commonly referred to solely by "Alan" or by a homonymous name.'' * ...

& Richard Bishop.

Discography

~ denotes a recording using Cracked.

Solo albums

* ''Untitled'' (Audible Hiss, 1996) * ''A New Way to Pay Old Debts'' (Palilalia Records, 2009; reissued in 2011) * ''How the Thing Sings'' (Editions Mego, 2011) * ''A History of Every One'' (Editions Mego, 2013) * ''Twenty Five Songs'' (Palilalia Records, 2013) released as a box of thirteen 7" singles * ''Solo Acoustic Volume Ten'' (VDSQ/Thin Wrist, 2014) * ''Cracked Music'' (Fake Estates, 2016)~ * ''An Account Of The Crimes Of Peter Thiel And His Subsequent Arrest, Trial And Execution'' (Fake Estates, 2017)~ * ''Bill Orcutt'' (Palilalia Records, 2017; reissued 2011) * ''Why Four Strings?'' (Palilalia Records, 2017) compilation * ''Neu Bros/OK Phone/Rural Beatles'' (Fake Estates, 2018)~ * ''Live in LA'' (Fake Estates, 2019)~ * ''Odds Against Tomorrow'' (Palilalia Records, 2019) * ''Slow Troll'' (Fake Estates, 2020)~ * ''Reasons I Am Great'' (Palilalia Records, 2020) * ''A Mechanical Joey'' (Fake Estates, 2021)~ * ''The Entertainer B/W New Words from the OED'' (Fake Estates, 2022)~ compilation * ''Music for Four Guitars'' (Palilalia Records, 2022) * ''The Anxiety of Symmetry'' (Palilalia Records, 2023)~ * ''Jump On It'' (Palilalia Records, 2023) * '' The Four Louies'' (Palilalia Records, 2024)~

Collaborations/split releases

* ''The Raw and the Cooked'' (Palilalia Records, 2013) with Chris Corsano * ''Road Stories'' (Unrock, 2014) with Sir Richard Bishop * ''Live at Various'' (Palilalia Records, 2014; vinyl release, 2016) with Chris Corsano * ''Colonial Donuts'' (Palilalia Records, 2015) with Jacob Felix Heule * ''Various Live'' (Palilalia Records, 2015; vinyl release, 2016) with Chris Corsano * ''Parallelogram'' (Three Lobed Recordings, 2015) with Chris Corsano and Alan Bishop * ''Live in New York'' (Palilalia Records, 2015) with Circuit Des Yeux * ''Electric Guitar Duets'' (Land and Sea, 2016; vinyl release, 2020) with Michael Morley (musician) * ''Live at Cafe Oto'' (Otoroku, 2016) with

Okkyung Lee Okkyung Lee (born 1975 in Daejeon, South Korea) is a South Korean cellist, improviser, and composer. Lee moved to Boston in 1993, where she received a dual bachelor's degree in Contemporary Writing and Production and Film Scoring (Berklee Colle ...

* ''OKK/OTT'' (Palilalia Records, 2017) with Okkyung Lee * ''One Dollar Hits'' (Fake Estates, 2018; CD release, 2019)~ with Chris Corsano * ''Gucci Tops and Bottoms'' (Fake Estates, 2018; CD release, 2019)~ with Chris Corsano * ''Brace Up!'' (Palilalia Records, 2018) with Chris Corsano * ''Electric Smog'' (Unrock, 2019) with Chris Corsano * ''Made Out of Sound'' (Palilalia Records, 2021) with Chris Corsano * ''For Bill Who Will Be 100 In The Year 2062'' (Palilalia Records, 2022) with Tashi Dorji * ''Hemlock Tavern'' (Palilalia Records, 2022) with Chris Corsano * ''The Flower School'' (Palilalia Records, 2023) with Chris Corsano and Zoh Amba * ''Play at Duke'' (Palilalia Records, 2023) with Chris Corsano * ''A Mouth at Both Ends'' (Palilalia Records, 2023) with Tashi Dorji and

Joe McPhee Joe McPhee (born November 3, 1939) is an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who plays the tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone, the trumpet, the flugelhorn and the valve trombone. Although born in Miami, Florida, McPhee grew up in Poughkeepsie, ...

* ''Four Guitars Live'' (Palilalia Records, 2024) with the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet * ''Live at Big Ears'' (Palilalia Records, 2024) with Chris Corsano * ''At Land and Sea'' (Palilalia Records, 2024) with Alan Licht * ''Play Paris and Glasgow'' (Palilalia Records, 2024) with Okkyung Lee * ''Soundtrack for New York Ghetto Fishmarket 1903'' (Palilalia Records, 2024) with Danishta Rivero and Jacob Felix Heule

Solo cassettes

* ''Why Does Everybody Love Free Music But Nobody Loves Free People?'' (Palilalia Records, 2012; vinyl release, 2018) * ''My Friends When I'm Not There'' (Palilalia Records, 2014; vinyl release, 2018) * ''Gerty Loves Pussy'' (Palilalia Records, 2014; vinyl release, 2015) * ''Two Weeks in Another Town'' (Palilalia Records, 2014) * ''Daddy's Got a Spice Rack'' (Chocolate Monk, 2014; CDr release. 2017) * ''Recent Chrome Exploits'' (Fake Estates, 2015)~ * ''Plays Songs'' (Palilalia Records, 2015) * ''Lonely People'' (Palilalia Records, 2015) * ''Live at Constellation'' (Palilalia Records, 2017) * ''Live at No Response'' (No Response, 2018) * ''Pure Genius'' (Chocolate Monk, 2020)~ * ''Warszawa'' (Endless Happiness/Palilalia Records, 2020) * ''Real Feel Geel Reel'' (Taping Policies/Palilalia Records, 2020) * ''Empire of Hurt Feelings'' (Superpang, 2021) * ''Roasted Memories'' (Palilalia Records, 2022)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Orcutt, Bill American experimental guitarists American male guitarists Living people 1962 births 20th-century American guitarists 20th-century American male musicians