A Quick Case for Spending Time With Bill Orcutt

Begin with the performance, stay for How to Rescue Things, Orcutt’s 2024 album that deepens the picture.

Every once in a while it’s important to watch an artist shred on the guitar. Experiencing a master at work is to watch a soul whose mind and body are one, a clear line between muse and fingers, with instinct, memory, and sound moving together without friction. That focus has long defined the work of Bill Orcutt.

Orcutt first surfaced in the early 1990s with Harry Pussy, a messy noise-punk project that pushed volume and speed until form nearly collapsed. When it ended in the late 1990s, Orcutt stepped away from music entirely. His return years later came stripped of excess. Working solo, often on a four-string acoustic guitar, he began pulling apart blues and folk structures, reducing them to rhythm, attack, and space. Songs became shorter and sharper.

Over the past decade-plus, that approach has drawn a growing bunch of admirers as his work has expanded in glorious ways. Anyone new to his music should make room in permanent storage for How to Rescue Things, his 2024 solo record that shows how far his language has stretched. Layering in the blissful sounds of a church choir, Orcutt plays with a sublime delicacy — mixed with frequent sonic tantrums. Once heard, it’s hard to shake.

Last year Orcutt and a pair of regular live collaborators, Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) and Ethan Miller (Howlin Rain, Comets On Fire), released their first studio album, Orcutt Shelley Moore. It’s an intensely deep listen, as evidenced by the recent KEXP set above.