Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt - Made Out of Sound (2021)

Longtime associates Chris Corsano and Bill Orcutt have been highly productive as a duo since the early 2010s, issuing several releases under multiple formats. Made Out of Sound is their third studio album together, following 2018's acclaimed Brace Up!, and it's their most refined collaboration to date. Corsano's drumming bursts with ecstatic energy as much as it ever has, and Orcutt's guitar playing, while sprawling and tonally complex, is more melodic and even gentle than he often sounds, and it's downright gorgeous. While actually a few minutes shorter than Brace Up! (which was barely half an hour itself), Made Out of Sound feels less punkish and thrashy. The edges aren't as sharp, and Orcutt doesn't whinny and groan, Keith Jarrett style, along with his guitar playing this time. Apart from the rollicking, tumbling two-minute "How to Cook a Wolf," most of the tracks stretch out a few minutes longer, giving the pieces room to breathe even as the musicians themselves seem breathless. The burning yet tender "The Thing Itself" is perhaps the high point of this turbulent, passionate album. Surprisingly enough, even though the duo have remarkable chemistry, the set wasn't recorded in real time -- Corsano recorded his drum parts alone and sent them to Orcutt, who left them unedited and overdubbed separate, panned guitar tracks over them.