For Bill Orcutt’s other acoustic albums – the last physical release being 2014’s VDSQ : Solo Acoustic: Volume Ten – his instrument was an old jumbo Kay guitar, tuned down to either D–FAD or F–FAD (Bill has played with the guitar’s A and D strings removed for decades now) to relieve pressure on a damaged neck. The guitar has a long scale, a big body and a dry yet punchy sound that lent itself well to the ferocity of some of the music on that record and the previous A History of Every One and How the Thing Sings. For Jump on It, Bill pulled a Harmony Sovereign out of the closet and stripped it of two strings before recording. With a slightly shorter scale and sweeter tone, the Harmony epitomises the sound Bill achieves on this album.
Having naturally shifted to a less aggressive and more pensive approach in recent years, starting with 2017’s Bill Orcutt, his first solo electric album, Jump on It feels calm and even quiet in places. On many tracks, like the gently probing Some Hidden Purpose, you hear the sound of Bill’s breathing, a stark contrast to the dramatic non-syllabic howling that haunts his other acoustic releases and another detail that illustrates the intimate and more content nature of this recording. In fact, Jump on It shares much with parts of Bill Orcutt, including the space between notes and the shimmering nature of the music, the best example being A Natural Death, a deeper-sounding song with some reverb, reminiscent of Ol Man River from Bill Orcutt. However, there are still bursts of Bill’s signature blistering fretboard runs and spiky arpeggios, like on New Germs, where even some of his moans are audible.
Another album that permeates this set is Music for Four Guitars, last year’s remarkable suite of miniature compositions built for sixteen strings. The clean repetition and complex minimalism running through that album comes across at points here, particularly on Music that Fights Back, a two-and-a-half minute piece of tight playing that shifts infinitesimally in places. In contrast, In a Column of Air is the most mercurial song here, moving from loosely improvised in structure to tightly repetitive towards the end. At once complex, clear, direct and primitive, it’s a song that sums up this excellent album.
Jump On It is out on 28 April 2023 via PALILALIA – Digital/CD/LP