Bill Nace

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.”

Based in Philadelphia, PA, Nace 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 via Drag City. 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.