Bill Orcutt

Bill Orcutt first gained notice through co-founding the Miami noise rock group Harry Pussy in the early 1990s. He resurfaced in 2009 with a sequence of praised albums that explored a distinctive approach to blues-derived guitar improvisation. From then forward he issued a steady stream of solo work, among them the 2011 album How the Thing Sings, together with joint recordings alongside improvisers such as drummer Chris Corsano and cellist Okkyung Lee. Music for Four Guitars, consisting of short solo pieces, appeared in 2022.

Long drawn to experimental art, Orcutt holds a master’s degree in English and has directed several avant-garde short films, one of which MTV purchased in 1990. Before establishing Harry Pussy in 1992 with his then-wife, drummer Adris Hoyos, he performed in local punk bands including the Trash Monkeys. The duo remained active for five years, producing a run of stark and provocative releases on independent labels that drew approval from Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow. Near the end of the group’s run in 1996, Orcutt finished his debut solo recording, issued simply as Solo CD (also known as Untitled) on New York’s Audible Hiss label; the set included guest vocals from Hoyos as well as contributions from drummer Danny Arad and saxophonist Joe Cohen, among others.

After Harry Pussy disbanded and the marriage ended, Orcutt settled in San Francisco and stepped away from music to concentrate on filmmaking. He resumed performing and recording in 2009, founding Palilalia Records to release his own material. His playing had shifted toward a raw, arresting style of blues guitar, executed primarily on acoustic. Following several limited-edition 7-inch and LP releases plus a favorably received WFMU session captured in the station bathroom, Editions Mego began issuing his work in 2011. The Austrian label reissued the 2009 album A New Way to Pay Old Debts, brought out its successor How the Thing Sings, and then released 2013’s A History of Every One, which featured radically altered versions of songs such as “White Christmas” and “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.”

Orcutt has appeared at numerous festivals as a solo artist and has worked with other noted experimental musicians, among them drummer Chris Corsano, free-jazz saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, and cellist Okkyung Lee. In 2014 he shared a split LP with Sir Richard Bishop, formerly of Sun City Girls, and in 2015 he released the electric album Colonial Donuts with drummer Jacob Felix Heule. During 2017 he issued a self-titled electric album that proved markedly less abrasive than his acoustic recordings. The next year Orcutt and Corsano recorded the high-energy, punk-inflected collaboration Brace Up!. Although the duo had already produced several limited-edition releases, the bristling intensity of this album ranked among their most widely noticed and critically praised. Orcutt returned in 2019 with the quieter solo collection Odds Against Tomorrow. A further Corsano partnership, Made Out of Sound, emerged in 2021. The spare, melodic Music for Four Guitars appeared in 2022.