As part of Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain, ISSUE presents Bill Orcutt, performing his hiccup-stuttered, blues-inspired guitar in a solo acoustic set, a shared bill with avant percussionist Jon Mueller. Active since the mid-80s, Mueller’s contemplative, dense minimalism is truly singular– engaging a physical dialog between situation and material.
Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain– a two-month festival celebrating ISSUE Project Room's 10th anniversary– revisits seminal past projects and initiates new relationships with over 60 artists working across disciplines of sound, dance, performance, and literature. Presented as a series of 24 evenings of provocative double billings, Ten Years Alive blurs the boundaries between divergent disciplines and practices and celebrating the vibrancy of the Brooklyn experimental arts community.
Bill Orcutt’s sound is a hiccup-stuttered reimagining of blues guitar. One can hear familiar Southern folk scales between Orcutt’s jagged solo acoustic phrases, pulling and pushing melodies into unresolved fragments that eventually come unmoored in vast and satisfying note-torrents. Former guitarist and founder of the noise/punk rock duo Harry Pussy, Orcutt was already a significant name in experimental noise circles when he released his solo debut in '96, and has published a string of releases since confirming his essential role in the contemporary experimental scene. Long interested in cutting-edge art, Orcutt had a Master's in English and had made several experimental short films, one of which sold to MTV in 1990. He also played in several local punk bands, most notably the Trash Monkeys, before forming Harry Pussy in 1992 with his wife, drummer Adris Hoyos. They worked together for the next five years, releasing a series of uncompromising and confrontational recordings on small labels and gaining acclaim from the likes of Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Sebadoh's Lou Barlow.
Jon Mueller has been a drummer and percussionist for over twenty-five years, performing throughout North America, Europe, United Kingdom, and Japan. Solo concerts at New Museum, The Arnolfini, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, Issue Project Room, Guggenheim, Alverno Presents, Hopscotch Fest, SXSW and Cafe OTO have been described by audiences as resilient, intense, and meditative. His recordings have been released by record labels such as Table of the Elements, Type Recordings, Hometapes, Important Records, Taiga Records, and others. A founding member of the bands Volcano Choir, Collections of Colonies of Bees, and Pele, he has also worked with Jonathan Kane, Rhys Chatham, Jarboe, James Plotkin, Fred Lonberg-Holm,Marcus Schmickler, Bhob Rainey, Dan Burke, Asmus Tietchens, Lionel Marchetti, Z’EV, Jason Kahn, Jack Wright, and many others. He has also written a novella, Pianobread (1999), a box of short stories, Endings (2004), and non-fiction articles and essays for ChangeThis, Pear Noir!, The Shepherd Express, OnMilwaukee, and Amoeba Records.
