“I build structures or musical moments based on assumptions and then allow those to fail and dissolve over time. Here, frustration or discord is as important as ecstatic coordination.”
Bill Nace, 2020 Pew Fellow. Photo by Ryan Collerd.
Bill Nace, 2020 Pew Fellow. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Bill Nace, 2020 Pew Fellow. Photo by Ryan Collerd.
Bill Nace, 2020 Pew Fellow. Photo by Ryan Collerd.
Bill Nace, 2020 Pew Fellow. Photo by Andrew Kesin.
Bill Nace, 2020 Pew Fellow. Photo by Chelsea Hogue.
Guitarist Bill Nace’s experimental improvisations and compositions extend the boundaries of electric guitar technique, using bows, metal, wood, glass bowls, and other implements. His distinctive musical vocabulary references folk, rock, and punk traditions as he works to make a ubiquitous instrument sound new. “I use this energy to see if there is a space in between that I can call my own,” he says, “where I can draw from all of these traditions while also exerting something that feels personal and not beholden to one discipline.” He performs in the band Body/Head with Kim Gordon as well as in duos with Samara Lubelski and Steve Baczkowski, and he has collaborated with Yoko Ono, Joe McPhee, Thurston Moore, and many others. As a touring musician, he has performed at venues and festivals such as Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Primavera Sound in Barcelona, the Benaki Museum in Athens, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Nace released Both, his first solo album, in 2020. He founded Open Mouth Records to release experimental music and hosts Open Mouth Presents, an ongoing local performance series for interdisciplinary, multigenerational groups of performers.
