Bill Orcutt at Johnny Brenda's

Ars Nova Workshop is pleased to present a dream bill of solo performances by guitarist Bill Orcutt of infamous noise rockers Harry Pussy and Medeski Martin and Wood percussionist Billy Martin.

The aggression and experimentation of Miami-based duo Harry Pussy, which featured Bill Orcutt on four-string guitar and vocals, proved to be highly influential on a generation of underground noisemakers, but Orcutt seemed to disappear after the band called it quits in 1997. The guitarist relocated to San Francisco, got a job in software engineering and went almost completely silent for the next decade and change. He reemerged in 2009 with the solo acoustic guitar album A New Way To Pay Old Debts....

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Ars Nova Workshop is pleased to present a dream bill of solo performances by guitarist Bill Orcutt of infamous noise rockers Harry Pussy and Medeski Martin and Wood percussionist Billy Martin.

The aggression and experimentation of Miami-based duo Harry Pussy, which featured Bill Orcutt on four-string guitar and vocals, proved to be highly influential on a generation of underground noisemakers, but Orcutt seemed to disappear after the band called it quits in 1997. The guitarist relocated to San Francisco, got a job in software engineering and went almost completely silent for the next decade and change. He reemerged in 2009 with the solo acoustic guitar album A New Way To Pay Old Debts.

The overdue return was widely hailed, landing at #3 in The Wire’s Top 50 Release of the Year list and being acclaimed by Pitchfork for its “raw improvisations equally indebted to blues legends like Lightnin' Hopkins and abstract experimenters like Derek Bailey.”

Orcutt has been on the road regularly ever since, releasing a string of solo albums on his own Palilalia imprint alongside collaborations with drummers Chris Corsano and Jacob Felix Heule, cellist Okkyung Lee, guitarist Bill Nace, Hayley Fohr of Circuit des Yeux, and Brazilian trio Chinese Cookie Poets. In 2012 he picked up the electric guitar once again, resulting in 2017’s Bill Orcutt, his first solo electric studio album. The self-titled session features serrated, howling, spacious explorations of familiar tunes from Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” to “When You Wish Upon a Star” and “Over the Rainbow.”

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