At Le Guess Who? 2023, veteran improviser Bill Orcutt (of Harry Pussy) was joined live by an all-star team of seasoned guitarists, made up of Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza, and Shane Parish.
The four tackled Orcutt’s rhythmic tapestry released on 'Music For Four Guitars' (2022), following the intricate composition’s thread while keeping the piece’s improvisational spirit ever-present. The results are now released as a 2LP live album entitled 'Four Guitars Live', recorded at Utrecht's Jacobikerk during Le Guess Who?. Order the album below via Bandcamp or listen via Spotify.
"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 Mendoza's liquefying lines on Out of the corner of the eye, then revived and healed by the languid, breathy lines of Parish's unaccompanied, spaced-out breakdown of the track's main theme, finally only to be crushed by Eisenberg’s staggering extended solo on Only at dusk (somehow channeling both Eugene Chadbourne and Buck Dharma)" - Tom Carter
Audio recording by Marc Broer and Casper Lucas
Mastered by James Plotkin
Live photography by Lisanne Lentink; LP photography by Jim Hensley
