Once upon a time, Bill purchased a four-track recorder and began writing his own songs. Distributed via cassette to friends, Bill’s home recordings came off like an intimate late night conversation whispered into a tape recorder. What made the tracks so unique was its marriage of intimate disclosure and pop ambition- arrangements that gaev nods to Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys guy) and George Martin (the old guy in Beatles photos) and elegant melodies that were more Burt Bacharach than Lou Barlow.

Officially released in the fall of 2002 on indie label Transdreamer, as a home-recorded double album Ordinary Time caught the attention of the international music press and began popping up on year-end top ten lists from The Village Voice, San Francisco Weekly, Amazon.com, Rolling Stone.com, Philadelphia Weekly, and Salon.com.
Fast forward to the winter of 2004. Having moved to New York’s Lower East Side, Bill began working on his sophomore album Tonight I Burn Brightly. What resulted is a record brimming with melody, filled with smartly addictive hooks, shimmering arrangements, and confessional lyrics and the benefits of moving for the bedroom to a vintage Brooklyn recording studio.

At once happy and sad, simple and intricate, lushly arranged and emotionally raw. TIBB combines chamber pop orchestrations (The Left Banke, The Beach Boys, The Zombies) full of strings, horns, folk guitar, piano with a sharp pop songwriting sensibility (the show tunes of Village Green Ray Davies, the sweet 70s AM pop of Todd Rundgren, the tin pan alley of Harry Nilsson, the guitar pop of The Smiths, the sincere low-key charm of White Album Beatles and Friends Beach Boys).

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As the record began to take shape, themes started to emerge. “It’s a record about memory and hope –the emotional push and pull of human relationships,” says Ricchini. “It’s about the way a room feels when someone has left it, the way someone's pillowcase smells. It's filled with ghosts.”

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