Bill Orcutt Quartet: Four Guitars Live 2LP (PALILALIA)
From Tom Carter penned one-sheet:
“[R]ecorded in November of 2023 at Le Guess Who? festival during the quartet’s first European tour. The true essence of this set is not simply in its faithfulness to the source compositions, but in the group's easy familiarity (no doubt the result of weeks on the road) and the generosity of their improvisations, both collective and solo. Orcutt, clearly cognizant of both the caliber of his collaborators and the singularity of their voices, has given everyone room to stretch out, and all have delivered some of their most moving passages to date.
One of this record's great thrills for me is imagining a listener, perhaps unfamiliar with the outer limits of contemporary guitar improvisation (or the Tzadik catalog), slammed into catatonia by [Ava] Mendoza's liquefying lines on ‘Out of the corner of the eye,’ then revived and healed by the languid, breathy lines of [Shane] Parish's unaccompanied, spaced-out breakdown of the track's main theme, finally only to be crushed by [Wendy] Eisenberg’s staggering extended solo on ‘Only at dusk’ (somehow channeling both Eugene Chadbourne and Buck Dharma).
There's another peak, which begins at the end of Side B, in Orcutt's own languid solo, encapsulating the flowing focus of his recent solo LPs, and serving as an introduction to the next side's ensemble tour de force, the psychic heart of the album, ‘On the horizon’: its melodic core passing first to Orcutt, launching into a sublime solo turn by Eisenberg, a duo of Parish and Mendoza, before parachuting back into the ensemble for a smashup rendition of ‘Barely visible’ and ‘Glimpsed while driving’ (renamed ‘Barely driving’) knitted together with an softly bubbling ensemble improvisation. The transfer is orchestrated yet seamless, its tonal form undeniable even in the presence of obvious dissonance."
From Tom Carter penned one-sheet:
“[R]ecorded in November of 2023 at Le Guess Who? festival during the quartet’s first European tour. The true essence of this set is not simply in its faithfulness to the source compositions, but in the group's easy familiarity (no doubt the result of weeks on the road) and the generosity of their improvisations, both collective and solo. Orcutt, clearly cognizant of both the caliber of his collaborators and the singularity of their voices, has given everyone room to stretch out, and all have delivered some of their most moving passages to date.
One of this record's great thrills for me is imagining a listener, perhaps unfamiliar with the outer limits of contemporary guitar improvisation (or the Tzadik catalog), slammed into catatonia by [Ava] Mendoza's liquefying lines on ‘Out of the corner of the eye,’ then revived and healed by the languid, breathy lines of [Shane] Parish's unaccompanied, spaced-out breakdown of the track's main theme, finally only to be crushed by [Wendy] Eisenberg’s staggering extended solo on ‘Only at dusk’ (somehow channeling both Eugene Chadbourne and Buck Dharma).
There's another peak, which begins at the end of Side B, in Orcutt's own languid solo, encapsulating the flowing focus of his recent solo LPs, and serving as an introduction to the next side's ensemble tour de force, the psychic heart of the album, ‘On the horizon’: its melodic core passing first to Orcutt, launching into a sublime solo turn by Eisenberg, a duo of Parish and Mendoza, before parachuting back into the ensemble for a smashup rendition of ‘Barely visible’ and ‘Glimpsed while driving’ (renamed ‘Barely driving’) knitted together with an softly bubbling ensemble improvisation. The transfer is orchestrated yet seamless, its tonal form undeniable even in the presence of obvious dissonance."
From Tom Carter penned one-sheet:
“[R]ecorded in November of 2023 at Le Guess Who? festival during the quartet’s first European tour. The true essence of this set is not simply in its faithfulness to the source compositions, but in the group's easy familiarity (no doubt the result of weeks on the road) and the generosity of their improvisations, both collective and solo. Orcutt, clearly cognizant of both the caliber of his collaborators and the singularity of their voices, has given everyone room to stretch out, and all have delivered some of their most moving passages to date.
One of this record's great thrills for me is imagining a listener, perhaps unfamiliar with the outer limits of contemporary guitar improvisation (or the Tzadik catalog), slammed into catatonia by [Ava] Mendoza's liquefying lines on ‘Out of the corner of the eye,’ then revived and healed by the languid, breathy lines of [Shane] Parish's unaccompanied, spaced-out breakdown of the track's main theme, finally only to be crushed by [Wendy] Eisenberg’s staggering extended solo on ‘Only at dusk’ (somehow channeling both Eugene Chadbourne and Buck Dharma).
There's another peak, which begins at the end of Side B, in Orcutt's own languid solo, encapsulating the flowing focus of his recent solo LPs, and serving as an introduction to the next side's ensemble tour de force, the psychic heart of the album, ‘On the horizon’: its melodic core passing first to Orcutt, launching into a sublime solo turn by Eisenberg, a duo of Parish and Mendoza, before parachuting back into the ensemble for a smashup rendition of ‘Barely visible’ and ‘Glimpsed while driving’ (renamed ‘Barely driving’) knitted together with an softly bubbling ensemble improvisation. The transfer is orchestrated yet seamless, its tonal form undeniable even in the presence of obvious dissonance."