I have to admit that I didn’t really get on too well with the last Bill Orcutt album that came my way, but I’m always willing to persevere, and while ‘How the Thing Sings’ is in many respects simply more of the same, and is far from accessible, it’s also a definite progression and oddly compelling.
From the get-go, there’s just so much going on that my head begins to swim. There’s some ragged blues and psych in there, but then there’s a whole heap of other stuff: somehow, with just six strings, Orcutt manages to sound like he’s playing three songs all at once.
The vocals, when they enter the fray, are wild, weird, counter-musical and against the grain – all of the grains, which run every which way in these crazy, multi-directional far-out compositions. There are explosions of atonal din that burst from nowhere amidst the lurching pickings, pluckings and strummings that collide off one another
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The thing doesn’t so much sing as moan and wail as Orcutt thrashes and twangs it within an inch of its life, then continues to beat it as the blood flows.
Bill Orcutt Online
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