Bill Orcutt - The Four Louies LP
$25.98
Label: Fake Estates
Release Date: May 30th, 2025
Bill Orcutt’s latest for Fake Estates fuses two radical landmarks of 20th-century sound: Richard Berry’s raucous 1957 R&B anthem Louie Louie, and Steve Reich’s minimalist milestone Four Organs (1970). On Side A, Orcutt overlays these sonic opposites—garage rock chaos and slowly evolving organ drones—into a zig-zagging 4/4 cadence that mirrors the structure of a rock song, with the Four Organs’ sustained tones hinting at Louie Louie's infamous vocal line.
Side B flips the balance: Louie Louie becomes a counterpoint buried beneath Reich’s droning organ repetitions. Orcutt exposes the Kingsmen’s famously out-of-tune 1963 version in all its glory, complete with that stubborn maraca skidding into an oddly pulsing 6-beat pattern.
Reframing these cultural touchstones—proto-punk and proto-minimalism—as a single obsessive composition, Orcutt restores their raw, rebellious energy while casting them in a totally new light.
