Bill MacKay
ABOUT
"Chicago folk experimentalist Bill MacKay's latest offering, "Glow Drift," is a terrific instrumental cut that blisses out with a summery guitar melody and featherlight rhythmic backbone." - Paste
“[MacKay] bears down on chords, lofts raga-tinged scales, hints at the blues and bends and stretches sustained notes; his guitar both rides the beat and taunts it.” - The New York Times
"'When I Was Here' is a breezy folk track that has MacKay taking that longing feeling and flipping it into a stunning single for what is already shaping up to be a fantastic LP." - Glide Magazine
“Bill MacKay's become a stealth fixture on the Chicago music scene over the last decade and change... a rich and easygoing reminder that the American guitar tradition is a vast and detailed one.” - NPR
Bill MacKay is a guitarist, composer, singer and improviser based in Chicago. A renowned solo artist and accomplished collaborator with projects that include solo albums Esker (2017), Fountain Fire (2019) and Locust Land (2024), and recordings with cellist Katinka Kleijn (Stir, 2019), Nathan Bowles (Keys, 2021), and Ryley Walker (SpiderBeetleBee, 2019), all released on Drag City Records, MacKay has pursued his musical investigations withobsessive rigor.
A deep radiance envelopes even MacKay's most dissonant explorations, and his trajectorytravels seamlessly from the avant-garde to folk modes and further.In his music, tradition isinvited to be reinvented. MacKay is also a poet, visual artist and polyglot, and is a member ofboth the avant-garde rockoutfit Black Duck (with Douglas McCombs) and the experimental groove-drone project BCMC (with Cooper Crain). Among other publications, his work has received praise in the Chicago Reader, New York Times, Mojo, Uncut, Downbeat, Paste, Pitchfork, and NPR.
VIDEO