
One of the most unexpected musical events of 2009 was the return after a 12 year break of guitar abuser Bill Orcutt. Originally from Miami noise rock group Harry Pussy (92-97). Harry Pussy took rock to the extreme like a louder, faster Melt Banana with added primal scream fem aggression, like a punk Yoko Ono from Adris Hoyos. The records released by Harry Pussy on Stiltbreeze in the 90's were very much ignored at the time (the debut was titled 'In an emergency you can shit on a Puerto Rican whore'), but now are name checked as influential by the free jazz/rock/noise scene of artists like Corsano, Sunburned, Hospitals, Sightings, Wolf Eyes etc.
Orcutt played electric guitar with four strings in Harry Pussy, and on his return played a four string acoustic, with some shouted accompaniment. Orcutt kept the no-wave, fire music influences and added the virtuosity of the blues and John Fahey, although ultimately Orcutt sounds like nobody but himself. On some tunes Orcutt makes his acoustic sound like a piano, he must use his fingers like hammers, on others he lets repeated blues riffs, like on Lighting Hopkins cover 'Sad News For Korea' sound urgent and distressed. The 2000's brought many Fahey soundalikes and a return to popularity of solo guitar music, nobody however has developed a style as original and shocking as Bill Orcutt.
No comments:
Post a Comment