ORCUTT SHELLEY MILLER - Orcutt Shelley Miller (2025)
As you find yourself once again reflecting on how sloppy and banal the lyrics of most contemporary music are—even those by today’s so-called “renowned artists”—this album begins to play. And you immediately recognize in it a not-so-minor virtue: there are no vocals at all. The music, played by these musicians alone, is enough to make this short record a gem.
It recalls an old Spinal Tap interview, included in a special on Joe Satriani… a remark that has stayed with me for more than twenty years: “He (Satriani) has the technique, I have the volume.” And that, really, is how things should be—at least when it matters.
Technique + volume = a moment worth savoring, carrying us into dimensions where different languages challenge us to grasp their meaning fully. There are passages that echo Maggot Brain by Funkadelic, and chords that gesture toward a certain Country inflection…
And, happily, the effort rewards us—with taste, with pleasure, with insight. A fleeting remedy, alas, against the coarsening and flattening of human experience.