Bill Orcutt & Chris Corsano - Live At Various / Various Live 2xLP

Label: Palilalia

Our Review:

When Bill Orcutt and Chris Corsano first joined forces, comparisons were inevitably made to Orcutt's previous guitar-drums band Harry Pussy. However, the Orcutt/Corsano collaboration is something else entirely. While the private, longing blues of Orcutt's solo work at first seems nowhere to be found, Corsano's vertiginous drumming is the perfect complement to Orcutt's gnarled, ascending leads. Indeed, the duo take the ecstatic heights of American colloquial forms on a deep dive into the contemporary underground.

Compiling two cassettes of live performances, Live At Various / Various Live strips rock 'n' roll tropes to their barest essence. As its low-concept cover art suggests, this collection not-very-subtly flirts with the crassness of pop music and rockstar culture, but only to disassemble and overturn it. Parts channel the Ayler brothers at their 1966 European-tour peak – music of triumphant joy – while echoes of familiar blues forms are twisted into shapes we never thought possible. This is the sound of two visionaries destroying the world and building a new one from the detritus. We're lucky to call it home, even if just for the duration of these LPs.

Limited to 500 copies.