This RTV episode features Bill Orcutt’s solo sets and the world premiere of duo performance by himself and Chris Corsano.
They are asked the tough questions:
“What is your name and what do you do?”
“Why are the two of you playing together?”
“Why play loud?”
“Why do your records sound the way they do?”
“Why modify your instrument?”
“Why make music?”
Performance date: 08/30/2012
Episode release date: 12/13/2012
Former guitarist and founder of the noise/punk rock duo Harry Pussy (later a trio), Bill Orcutt creates sound like a hiccup-stuttered reimagining of blues guitar. One can hear familiar Southern folk scales between Orcutt’s jagged solo acoustic phrases, pulling and pushing melodies into unresolved fragments that eventually come unmoored in vast and satisfying note-torrents.
First spellbound by freely improvised music in the mid-1990s after witnessing performances by TEST, William Parker, Cecil Taylor, and others, Chris Corsano began a long-standing, high-energy partnership with Paul Flaherty in 1998. A move from western Massachusetts, USA to the UK in 2005 led Corsano to develop expanded solo music of his own, incorporating sax reeds, violin strings and bows, pot lids, and other everyday household items into his drum kit. In 2006, he released his first solo recording, The Young Cricketer, and toured throughout Europe, USA, and Japan. He spent 2007 and ’08 as the drummer on Björk’s Volta world tour, all the while weaving in shows and recordings on his days off with the likes of Evan Parker, Virginia Genta, and C. Spencer Yeh. Moving back to the U.S. in 2009, Corsano returned focus to his own projects, most notably a duo with Michael Flower, Rangda (with Sir Richard Bishop and Ben Chasny) and solo work, now revamped to include synthesizers and contact microphones in addition to his drum set and home-made acoustic instruments.