Orcutt, Bill
How To Rescue Things
Bill Orcutt is an American guitarist and composer whose work combines elements of blues, punk and free improvisation. In contrast to his previous reanimation of yesterday's hit parade, 'How To Rescue Things' takes as its foundation the oily underbelly of the American songbook, the relentless gears that churn melody into newly consumable and marketable forms-simultaneously ersatz, soothing and funereal. It's easy to use saccharine, easy-listening settings to deconstruct the romanticism of the past, but 'How To Rescue Things' is not an ironic record. True to its title, the transparently corny strings serve not as a meditation on cultural vacuity, but as an attempt to rehabilitate the cliche's of the past, 'rescuing' them as improvisational grist for new melodic content.