Orcutt Shelley Miller

When the explosive guitarist and adventurous bandleader Ethan Miller opts to play bass instead of six strings, you know the power trio must be special. Indeed, Orcutt Shelley Miller—the nascent combination of Miller with Sonic Youth mainstay Steve Shelley and alt-universe guitar god Bill Orcutt—is a joyously splenetic band, beating rock ’n’ roll to pieces and reassembling its bits into chimerical shape in real time. They debuted at experimental Los Angeles hub Zebulon in April 2024, committing their self-titled first album straight to tape during their onstage rendezvous. It is a brilliant reminder of how empathic and exploratory rock can be, how its very basic building blocks can be pushed to such extremes that the sound spills over into something entirely new.

Think about the way Mitch Mitchell moved with Jimi Hendrix. Think about the way Les Rallizes Dénudés could make caterwauling composites of sound so mesmerizing. Think about the way Cream was a runaway train so fast it couldn’t last. It all exists in Orcutt Shelley Miller. Orcutt’s laser-sharp playing often rides a riff and variation until it sounds like it’s reached its end, but he finds a way to cut back on a diagonal, to maintain the momentum of “A Star Is Born” or to let “Four-Door Charger” spiral ever upward. Shelley and Miller move with complete anticipation and sympathy, as if they can see the same unexplored horizon of instrumental psychedelia. Their arrival at Big Ears comes only a dozen or so shows into their existence, the newness still electrifying.