#orcutt

[counselinginorcutt]

http://orcuttcounseling.com

[awidevastdominion]

Went to the dunes today, then lunch/wine tasting at the Presqu'ile Winery in Orcutt, CA. Much joy of sorts.

[arinewman7]

Rolling Down a Hill Together

Rebecca Orcutt

oil on canvas, 2022

[zef-zef]

Radio France "L'Expérimentale" Present: (2 février 2025)

Clément Verceletto - Hoedic long "l’engoulevent" (un je-ne-sais-quoi, 2025) Bill Orcutt - Requiem in Dust "How to Rescue Things" (Palilalia, 2024) Jacob Kirkegaard - Astray "Snowblind" (Helen Scarsdale, 2025) Marianna Maruyama & Hessel Veldman - Viktorija "Salt" (Stroom, 2025) Olga Anna Markowska – Bordeland "Iskra" (Miasmah, 2025) Shelter & Orion with Turner Williams Jr - Le Sacre Des Lucioles "Krakatoa" (Omnison, 2025) Peter Rehberg - Liminal States (Editions Mego, 2025) Lovely Midget - Still Rain - "Lovely Midget" (Corpus Hermeticum, 2000)

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Bill Orcutt + Steve Shelley + Ethan Miller Trio - Tubby's, Kingston, New York, November 19, 2024

Say hello to your new favorite power trio. I don't know if you could dream up a more enticing guitar/bass/drums force of nature than Bill Orcutt, Ethan Miller and Steve Shelley. A three-headed, six-armed beast! And of course, their previous bands make for a great potential moniker — I think they were considering "Howlin Sonic Pussy" at first, but decided against it. Oh well.

Bill, Ethan and Steve played a few shows late last fall and fortunately for all of us, Eric PH was at Tubby's to record a fantastic set. As would be expected, there's some deeply wired, blown-out jamming happening here — but that's not all! Orcutt, Miller and Shelley also find some deliciously moody grooves, moments of lyrical beauty, lotsa dynamic interplay. Rock 'n' roll unbound, created on-the-spot by three masters. More, please!

[b5ksrockhaus]

Bill Orcutt by Mark Davis for The Wire, 2025

[iamlisteningto]

Bill Orcutt, Steve Shelley, & Ethan Miller Live at Zebulon, LA 4/13/2024 (released as Orcutt Shelley Miller)

A Star Is Born

An L.A. Funeral

Unsafe At Any Speed

Four Door Charger

A Long Island Wedding

[musicmags]

[jgthirlwell]

04.30.24 Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet at Le Poisson Rouge. Bill Orcutt, Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza and Shane Parish.

[dustedmagazine]

2023: Bryon Rides Anxiety’s Peaks and Valleys

Yo La Tengo

This year really tossed us all around like a gigantic blender, swirling everything together into a writhing mass of fine particles. It’s been quite the ride. Thankfully amidst the chaos, there was music. The vast cornucopia of exhilarating sounds wound itself around the many genres, and the dozens of releases spread across these twelve months. It provided the healing salve to combat the bedlam lying in the realm beyond our ears.

For me, live music in 2023 was about quality over quantity. The two shows that affected me most this past year were aligned along the theme of reunion. I’ve been a fan of Yo La Tengo since high school but had strayed from the band’s past few releases. This Stupid World brought me back into their universe. I jumped at the chance to see them in Toronto; it had been decades since I last saw them play live. They played two sets, one soft and one loud, and they didn’t disappoint. As an added bonus, I got to meet fellow Dusted writer Ian Mathers at the show. Toronto post-rockers Do Make Say Think played their first show in six years in March, around my birthday. I wasn’t going to miss it. They unleashed an enticing set of music, playing material from across their entire catalog with intense energy. It was hypnotic and exhilarating. They were also jovial, joking about the current career prospects of the band members. It was a fun night.

Many perennial favorite groups and artists released excellent albums this year. Yo La Tengo returned to their early Matador form with This Stupid World, while The Clientele expanded into new, lush and uncanny territory on I’m Not There Anymore. Califone’s Villagers pushed the band’s adventurous, bluesy roots-rock into an experimental wonderland. Bill Orcutt released Jump On It, revealing his softer side. The Live in Brooklyn 2011 set from Sonic Youth found the group trying out songs they rarely played live, as they wound down their decades-long existence. Joshua Abrams’ Natural Information Society showed that they’re not done unleashing mesmerizing sonic salvos with Since Time is Gravity. Finally, Daniel Bachman continued to push his singular brand of Americana toward the outer limits with When the Roses Come Again, and Intercepted Message found Osees covering Cisco Systems’ telephone hold music. It was a good year for long-beloved institutions.

New to me this year was the band Famous Mammals and their polyglot post-punk album Instant Pop Expressionism Now! I returned to it time and time again; it was the soundtrack to my late summer and my autumn. Digging deeper into the San Francisco band’s origins, I discovered a previously hidden world of Bay Area post-punk, populated by a tight-knit scene that originated with The World, which would fracture into Famous Mammals, Non Plus Temps, Blues Lawyer, Children Maybe Later and others. The LP in question blends elements of Swell Maps, Young Marble Giants and Television Personalities, aligning with those outfits’ brashness, naivete, and wry sense of humor. It was at the top of my list in 2023 and led me to explore the SF underground further. That digging led me to Will York’s encyclopedic tome Who Cares Anyway? York gives an in-depth perspective to the goings on in the Bay Area from the post-hippie origins of its punk scene to the self-destructive chaos of Flipper and the visionary artistry behind acts such as Mr. Bungle, Caroliner, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, et cetera. He also investigates the unique personalities that comprised the scene such as Brandon Kearney, Gregg Turkington, Seymour Glass, Barbara Manning, and Joe Pop-o-Pie. The book is worth exploring if you’re at all interested in any of the names I mentioned.

I always highlight at least one Canadian release, and this year I really got into the self-titled debut from Toronto duo You Can Can. The pairing of sound artist Andrew Zukerman and vocalist Felicity Williams is the perfect comingling of the familiar and the otherworldly. Alien soundscapes intercept beautifully crafted song forms, with synth squiggles and abstract patterns writhing alongside folk music signifiers. Let’s hope that You Can Can have more music in store for us in 2024 and beyond.

Bryon Hayes

[lyssahumana]

[arinewman7]

Memory Hierarchy

Rebecca Orcutt

oil on canvas

[sethasmith]

OBEY CONVENTION - I was the art director of this world class experimental music festival for a number of years. A few of my posters from that time. Check out this fun ad too: https://vimeo.com/122684792

[thebeatifulones]

[counselinginorcutt]

[vitazmuzic]

BILL ORCUTT - HOW TO RESCUE THINGS

10/10

Individual song reviews under the cut.

Listening to this album made my chest hurt in ways I can't really describe: it awakened some deep pain in my chest that had scabbed over. This album hurts, not in the way of direct pain inflicted, but by making you aware of some absent thing you never had but always needed and perhaps ignored, or had once but had forgotten about and no longer have. It hurts because it is tooth-rottingly sweet and easy— riffs and picks cutting deep into lemon meringue pie. The atmosphere of this album is crushing, reverberating, an echo chamber of absent warmth you can’t touch but can always feel. Good pain! I liked it!!! Orcutt has complete mastery over the listening experience, and the image he is trying to conjure within us is not one to be seen, but one to be felt; unlike more subtle types of ambience, he haunts me specifically with choking memories of a nostalgic past that no longer exists.

‘Sanctuary’ opens with a heavenly choir and Orcutt's guitar. Note his style is free improvisation— nothing is written down, and everything flows freely. Usually I’d expect choir to be used to build tension, but it is a delicate background to the riffs that flow freely from Orcutt's mind, soothing and flowing sweetly along at its own pace. Truly ethereal— I feel like I'm embarking on some divine journey. The harsh, biting reverb of his guitar is masterfully manipulated as if not to clash with the choir. Even in places where it happens to clash, room is always made to make a unique harmony. Although the choir fades out occasionally, it is always promised to return. The choir and drone are not suffocating in their ever-present embrace. The track is warm— loving. It reminds me of the final cantos of Paradiso in the divine comedy, where Dante looks upon the flower of god and circles back to the love he observed in the very first canto of the Inferno. It is not necessarily that this love is strictly divine, but that the love experienced is ever-present in a way that makes it a presence to worship in and of itself. Although the track ends, the guitar is left with a few quiet riffs that sound more like hums to oneself, echoes from the love of the universe to the love generated by our free will and consciousness.

In ‘Not Reconciled,’ the choir returns, this time quieted in favor of allowing the guitar to shine. A gentle voice pokes through the personal relationship between the choir and the guitar to add a little bit of structure to the loose flows and connections that arise naturally rather than being outright scripted. The improvised guitar sings in wild, adventurous tones— the atmosphere is like dancing beneath a wide sky of beautiful, sparkling stars. There may not be much structure, but the chosen style of improvisation with the background sings of the joy of free will. There's a conclusion here to be made between spirituality, religion, and human nature, but I think people should come across that conclusion on their own and fit it to how they think rather than me outright saying it— that relationship is deeply personal and intimate, but universal. The guitar drowns out the choir and hum, only for it to come back forgiving and full force at the very end. The hymnal’s constant presence makes it difficult for me to breathe, and now, I am acutely aware of how much pressure is on my ribs and how now, I can’t take a deep breath. It's simple, but incredibly effective, almost making fun of itself for what has passed. I love it. The 'amen' was silly. I liked it.

The title track, ‘How to Rescue Things,’ introduces another voice— shrill, beautiful violins. Our choir is a constant feature, and the beginning of the song fades between voices as a call-and-response, like a discussion between non-vocal figures. The track is strikingly beautiful, and the entire track feels like turning over a glittering prism in my hands, watching the colors being cast on the wall. The guitar develops and grows more complex, clashing and adventuring into new riffs, but the drone never leaves, and when the choir is allowed to accompany, it does. That being said, Orcutt's improvisation is masterful, and there is no hesitation nor awkward moments.

‘Old Hamlet’ opens with a piano that sounds quite dreamy and far away, as if someone has put a plush, velvet pillow across the strings or between the hammers. The choir is in another room, allowing the piano to accompany and shine through, a constant presence for the guitar. There is no break for the piano like there was with the choir, so the song reads more like a duet. Both are still warm, nonetheless. It is almost like a dream of something that happened previously— dreaming of old freedom, of old rebellion, of sweet Hamlet and his hauntings, of an old town somewhere in the other room.

‘Pylon Pylon!’ opens with a church bell ringing. The improvisation sounds like the vague memory of a wedding march, many chords overlaid in dual, shining unity. Part of this track and the venture into different instruments and their role in relation to the central object of the guitar makes me think about the question of where, exactly, we find comfort, or ‘Sanctuary,’ where we find love and solace— religion? Others? Politics? Duty? Ourselves? Where is love and rescue, and what truly is it? The changing, loose faces of the guitar imply that rescue is to be found wherever we are, changing with our spirit. It is us who must rescue ourselves, not any force. Again, I am reminded of the love in the universe by the lack of structure with the background choir making it chaotic but beautiful. None of this has anything to do with the album, but still: I like this track.

‘Requiem in Dust’ stays to its name well, and it brings along a string section!!! The opening sounds like a gentle goodbye. The track finds comfort in memories of what used to be, swaddling us in nostalgia (I see you, old-rock riffs) without harming us or making us yearn. When we think of rescue, we default to this reckless idealism of warm arms lifting us out, saving us from our certain fate. but when our fate is uncertain, we can only look to what used to be to try to anticipate what might happen. There’s a key change to usher in the old, jazzy big-band strings as they evoke the warmth of the old comforts— the unity of the strings and their joyful play despite the sadness of soon parting.

‘The Wild Psalms’ introduces the rest of the orchestra— brass, percussion and all. It is a wild, gently thrilling encore, the finale to a 3-hour show. I feel like I'm back in plush red velvet theater seats, like I won't need a coat when I walk back outside into the cold after escaping into this fantasy land, because all of the warmth from the show will stay with me. Without taking up too much time, the album is exhausting in a good way. In this ballet, the lovers have finally joined and united— it reminds me of the excitement of the Phantom Regiment 2011 show Romeo and Juliet, the excitement of the crowd as they run to meet each other, arms outstretched. It’s grandiose, not because it’s high-volume or because it pulls at the tension building for ages, but because we imagine it to be so. The guitar is a nice touch, sparkling chandelier reflecting light across a red-velvet room with gold accents. We find comfort in what society used to be, in the mutual act of joining in something together for passion alone. The world conjured no longer exists. Throughout all of the theater, our comfort has always originated from others, and we return to the wild, primitive, human instinct not of violence, but of connection: recklessly pure connection. Although we may orchestrate things like violence and overwhelming hurt, we will always return to each other at the end of the day, not because we were fated to, but because it is the only natural thing to do. No matter what happens, no matter what things the guitar does or what chords are struck, the orchestra ebbs in to send it off gently on a journey of its own. The only pain here is the pain of saying goodbye, heart-wrenching only because we are defying the only natural thing that separates us— the choice to engage in society and engage in connection despite the risk of falling beneath the waves again. How do you part with something you just met but have loved forever? This album does not answer that for us, as it is that object. We have experienced that love, no matter how brief it was. It lets us figure out on our own that we cannot fix things, we cannot rescue things— we can love them, and love them enough so that when they decide to rescue themselves, they can have open arms to run into.

Most of what I yapped about was my own thoughts rather than relying on one strict interpretation or lyric, so none of that should be ever taken seriously, nor should it be taken as a sure listening interpretation. I enjoy that a listening experience can be so free like that. Owing to its production and where it samples from in the last tracks, it is sappy and nostalgic of itself without being outright hurtful, romantic optimism almost resembling the dreaminess and fantasy screamed in the last few tracks. I realize now, and only so late, that the thing that was making my chest ache was missing that optimism, when the world felt so open and so simple, so stuffed full of opportunities, so open to discovery. It is universal. Nothing about this album aches, but it does to me. You don’t need to know the intricacies of the improvisation of the guitar, nor the origins of the orchestral tune playing in the background, to understand. The album is a recent release, perfect in the middle of the political turmoil of the new age of American politics and attacks. There is much corruption and turmoil going on in the outside world. But here, in the theater Orcutt creates for us, in dreamy, wide-open fields and under a canopy of glittering stars, there is some respite— some solace. Some peace. Some rescue. It is sweet, swaddling, loving— bringing us up from harshness and taking us into romantic dreams.