Music for Four Guitars

As a solo artist, Bill Orcutt is best known for his brash, freewheeling blues-based guitar improvisations, as well as his unrecognizable renditions of classic show tunes and Christmas carols. However, he has also recorded long-form electronic pieces based on intense, highly repetitive figures -- 2021s A Mechanical Joey, for example, is a brain-frying sequence of Ramones count-offs arranged into Einstein on the Beach-like patterns. Music for Four Guitars applies this sort of minimalist repetition to Orcutts multi-tracked electric guitar compositions, resulting in some of his most melodic, accessible material. Nearly all of the tracks are around two minutes (three at most), and they all thread melodies through rhythmic frameworks, sounding far more controlled than much of Orcutts past work. Even when the guitars seem to clash at times, theyre nowhere near as abrasive as many of his other albums. "At a Distance," a more hypnotic piece that reveals more with each successive listen, can resemble Midwest emo or British post-punk, depending on which angle the listener approaches it from. Other tracks like "Or from Behind" and "Seen from Above" have a ragged, country-ish feel to them. Some tracks work better than others, but the album ends on an impressive note with the open, ringing distortion of "Or Head On." ~ Paul Simpson