Jim O'Rourke - happy trails

[Greg Torso]

Listening to this to drown out the brown ambient hum of the office. So good. Three minutes of drone build, a few more of meditative string picking and I won't spoil it but the direction it all takes at about 7.20 makes me grin every time

[sevendaughters]

Been thinking about Jim a bit of late actually. Probably a shout for one of the most important musical figures of my life, and definitely someone you can put in that Eno bracket as a polymathic genius type.

fuck it - here is a mildly-annoyingly written project I was doing trying to review all of the Jim-related records I could find. I only got to 66, which is probably about 100 short at last count. even those annual collabs he was doing with Oren Ambarchi and Haino Keiji would throw up at least 20 minutes of improv that was better than most written music that year.

[lazyhour]

Christ, I love Jim. ❤️

[SpiderChrist]

Ooh ooh ooh. I don't know much O'Rourke - would one of you lovely lot point me in the right direction?

I know Loose Fur, and his cover of Women of the World, but that's about it.

[sevendaughters]

Ooh ooh ooh. I don't know much O'Rourke - would one of you lovely lot point me in the right direction?

I know Loose Fur, and his cover of Women of the World, but that's about it.

We'll both probably regret this but here goes nothing. O'Rourke is a polymath with several tributaries to his discography and not everything is for everyone.

Women of the World is side 1 track 1 of Eureka, which comes out as part of his 'Roeg' trilogy (albums named after Nic Roeg films) that are all pretty much accessible records with left-field flourishes. Bad Timing, linked above by Torso, is something of a tribute to American Primitive style guitar meditations. Eureka has more of a Bacharach/Van Dyke Parks feel to it, and Insignificance begins approximating southern rock before a long stretch of patient sardonic acoustic-led things that are all beautiful. These 3, as well as the EP Halfway to a Threeway, tend to represent the natural starting point for anyone coming at O'Rourke from 'guitar music'.

At the exact same time he was doing these he also had a parallel burgeoning career as kingpin of accessible laptop IDM type stuff. I'm Happy and I'm Singing and A 1-2-3-4 is a good counterpoint to early DNTEL - melodic glitch led laptronica. There are some collabs with Pita and Fennesz under the name Fenn O'Berg that is live laptop improvisation that yields some fun results.

In the early to mid 90s I suppose he was most famous for being involved with a lot of bands behind the desk. Some of these groups he takes part in - Yona Kit, Brise-Glace - so if you like 90s Chicago alt-rock with some odd production choices, these might do something for you? You're probably on safer ground with the work he just produced - classic records for Smog, US Maple, Stereolab. He carried this on in the 00s with Wilco and Sonic Youth (who he joined on bass/third guitar for a couple of records) and did the Loose Fur records too. That first Loose Fur record is what got Jeff to hire Glenn for Wilco, apparently.

There's a tranch of rotten improv records in this mid 00s time with members of Sonic Youth and the Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafson. If amelodic chaos is your thing then please dive in to various records under different names like Diskaholics, but mostly AVOID.

I certainly wouldn't overlook his time in Gastr del Sol. If I had to proclaim a fav Jim record it would probably be Camoufleur, their swansong. Strange blend of American primitive and laptop music and original songwriting that would get called post-rock but sounded nothing like Mogwai, GYBE, Tortoise even. Earlier records can be hit and miss but there's ideas a-plenty.

The most persistent tendency in Jim, and the one that connects his early period (89-06) and his late one (10-present) [he stopped making music for a while and moved to Japan] is his deep immersion in the worlds of drone and musique concrete and that general The Wire world of serious intellectual music. O'Rourke has played with and studied under a lot of living greats - Bernard Parmagiani, Luc Ferrari, Henry Kaiser, Loren Mazzacane Connors, David Jackman - and invariably made records with them. It would be impossible to name all of the records here so I won't. He's re-released a lot under his extensive Steamroom series, too.

Since 2010 he has largely been in a collaborative mode - with his wife, who is an excellent pianist, and with other luminaries of improvisation like Keiji Haino. These works are often very good, even if he's playing with people you've never heard of.

His very early work on prepared guitar is pretty cool industrial (in the sense of decayed workplaces, rather than idk Ministry) sounding stuff.

And there's always just some oddball stuff, like the album of Bacharach covers. And he did two more 'pop' records in The Visitor and Simple Songs too that for some reason I always forget about!

If I were picking ten I'd say Camoufleur, Bad Timing, Eureka, Insignificance, Halfway to a Threeway, I'm Happy and I'm Singing, Happy Days (aka Steamroom 23), All Kinds of People Love Bacharach, In Bern, and Steamroom 47.

[SpiderChrist]

We'll both probably regret this but here goes nothing. O'Rourke is a polymath with several tributaries to his discography and not everything is for everyone.

Women of the World is side 1 track 1 of Eureka, which comes out as part of his 'Roeg' trilogy (albums named after Nic Roeg films) that are all pretty much accessible records with left-field flourishes. Bad Timing, linked above by Torso, is something of a tribute to American Primitive style guitar meditations. Eureka has more of a Bacharach/Van Dyke Parks feel to it, and Insignificance begins approximating southern rock before a long stretch of patient sardonic acoustic-led things that are all beautiful. These 3, as well as the EP Halfway to a Threeway, tend to represent the natural starting point for anyone coming at O'Rourke from 'guitar music'.

At the exact same time he was doing these he also had a parallel burgeoning career as kingpin of accessible laptop IDM type stuff. I'm Happy and I'm Singing and A 1-2-3-4 is a good counterpoint to early DNTEL - melodic glitch led laptronica. There are some collabs with Pita and Fennesz under the name Fenn O'Berg that is live laptop improvisation that yields some fun results.

In the early to mid 90s I suppose he was most famous for being involved with a lot of bands behind the desk. Some of these groups he takes part in - Yona Kit, Brise-Glace - so if you like 90s Chicago alt-rock with some odd production choices, these might do something for you? You're probably on safer ground with the work he just produced - classic records for Smog, US Maple, Stereolab. He carried this on in the 00s with Wilco and Sonic Youth (who he joined on bass/third guitar for a couple of records) and did the Loose Fur records too. That first Loose Fur record is what got Jeff to hire Glenn for Wilco, apparently.

There's a tranch of rotten improv records in this mid 00s time with members of Sonic Youth and the Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafson. If amelodic chaos is your thing then please dive in to various records under different names like Diskaholics, but mostly AVOID.

I certainly wouldn't overlook his time in Gastr del Sol. If I had to proclaim a fav Jim record it would probably be Camoufleur, their swansong. Strange blend of American primitive and laptop music and original songwriting that would get called post-rock but sounded nothing like Mogwai, GYBE, Tortoise even. Earlier records can be hit and miss but there's ideas a-plenty.

The most persistent tendency in Jim, and the one that connects his early period (89-06) and his late one (10-present) [he stopped making music for a while and moved to Japan] is his deep immersion in the worlds of drone and musique concrete and that general The Wire world of serious intellectual music. O'Rourke has played with and studied under a lot of living greats - Bernard Parmagiani, Luc Ferrari, Henry Kaiser, Loren Mazzacane Connors, David Jackman - and invariably made records with them. It would be impossible to name all of the records here so I won't. He's re-released a lot under his extensive Steamroom series, too.

Since 2010 he has largely been in a collaborative mode - with his wife, who is an excellent pianist, and with other luminaries of improvisation like Keiji Haino. These works are often very good, even if he's playing with people you've never heard of.

His very early work on prepared guitar is pretty cool industrial (in the sense of decayed workplaces, rather than idk Ministry) sounding stuff.

And there's always just some oddball stuff, like the album of Bacharach covers. And he did two more 'pop' records in The Visitor and Simple Songs too that for some reason I always forget about!

If I were picking ten I'd say Camoufleur, Bad Timing, Eureka, Insignificance, Halfway to a Threeway, I'm Happy and I'm Singing, Happy Days (aka Steamroom 23), All Kinds of People Love Bacharach, In Bern, and Steamroom 47.

A more comprehensive response I could not have wished for. Many thanks. Unfortunately my anhedonia is in charge right now, but will try and check those 10 when I'm all better.

[Greg Torso]

Great post, 7D.

Friend of mine went to the states and hung out in Chicago with a bunch of musicians some time in the late 90s (he somehow knew the guy who ran Skin Graft records). He came back with some cassettes of Jim playing his guitar that he'd recorded on a dictaphone in his house. Whilst playing the tapes for me, I picked up my guitar and scraped along with it, so in a way, I've collaborated with Jim O'Rourke (without him knowing it).

[lazyhour]

Great writeup!

I'd highly recommend his partner Eiko Ishibashi (as briefly mentioned above), especially her O'Rourke produced LPs "Car And Freezer" and "Imitation Of Life". He's absolutely all over them, and they're both brilliant proggy pop-rock albums which really reveal themselves on repeated listens.

[sardines]

fuck it - here is a mildly-annoyingly written project I was doing trying to review all of the Jim-related records I could find. I only got to 66, which is probably about 100 short at last count. even those annual collabs he was doing with Oren Ambarchi and Haino Keiji would throw up at least 20 minutes of improv that was better than most written music that year.

This is great thanks! And worth linking to the Tone Glow interview you mention in one of the Steamroom reviews. For anyone interested, it can lead you down endless underground music rabbit holes.

When I first read the interview I tried to work out what he was referring to in the below quote. Any ideas? I figured the Bacharach thing but that doesn't seem so embarrassing. (Not that I've heard it-i thought for a while maybe he was buying up copies to destroy them as it so rarely shows up on discogs.)

There are records out there that I'm insanely embarrassed about it that I wish did not exist. I mean you could probably guess what it is. Oh God Almighty, it's terrible.

Do you want to go on record and say what it is?

No, no. If you don't know about it, that's great. It was made with other people, it wasn't my thing. I really wish it didn't exist but that's life. It's luckily not that known now. Oh God... oh God...

[sevendaughters]

I wondered if he meant his cover of Viva Forever?

[McQ]

When I first read the interview I tried to work out what he was referring to in the below quote. Any ideas? I figured the Bacharach thing but that doesn't seem so embarrassing. (Not that I've heard it-i thought for a while maybe he was buying up copies to destroy them as it so rarely shows up on discogs.)

I was trying to figure this out, also. No idea, though. There's a good chance it's something that everyone else thinks is great, of course. I've heard interviews where he expresses regret about Eureka, saying that, "It just doesn't sound good."

[lazyhour]

I wondered if he meant his cover of Viva Forever?

I hope not, as I really like that cover. I believe he did it because he so loved singing Viva Forever at karaoke.

It does sound like he's describing the Bacharach tribute album, but again I hope not as there's some cracking stuff on there. At least 4 really brilliant tracks.

[McQ]

It does sound like he's describing the Bacharach tribute album, but again I hope not as there's some cracking stuff on there. At least 4 really brilliant tracks.

Actually, thinking about it, I'm sure I heard him say somewhere that one of the main motivations for doing the Bacharach album was to get his visa, so it could be that. But I'm with you, there's a lot to enjoy on it.

[sevendaughters]

does explain why you can't really get hold of it and why it's a bit of Ringo Starr All Starr Band type record.

[McQ]

https://www.liberation.fr/culture/musique/jim-orourke-ceux-qui-font-de-la-musique-y-trouvent-du-plaisir-pas-moi-20220729_HXDG5YGHMFAODDFJKQWDSG3P2Y/

Anyone speak French/have a subscription to Libération?