As All Tomorrow’s Parties announce Jim O’Rourke as their I’ll Be Your Mirror Japan 2012 curator, I’ve taken the opportunity to write a few words about his music and the most accessible period of his career.
A few month’s ago, my flatmates asked me if I’d been awoken by the horrific drone from the road works at 6am. After some discussion and clarification, we discovered it was not the unbearable noise of jackhammers, but in fact me… up late (or early, depending on the hours you keep) listening to Happy Days (Revenant, 1998).
They were not amused… But I was!
Yes… after the first 10 minutes it does descend into repetitive looping drones and a cacophony of noise, but it starts out as intricate guitar pick and ends up in the same place and you come to realise it was there throughout.
The reward most definitely comes from this realisation, but O’Rouke’s career is varied, and with each release comes new challenges, obstacles and most of all enjoyment.
Few artists, are as diverse, exciting and daring as Jim O’Rourke. More a modern composer than a songwriter, his work meanders through a variety of ideas, never settling on a single style or genre. One moment he takes you through an improvisational exploration, the next he’s singing a love song, lyrics ‘n’ all. But as is always the case, what you first hear is never what it seems. Perhaps his most accessible efforts, Insignificance LP (Drag City/Domino 2001) and Halfway To A Threeway EP (Drag City/Domino 1999) at first appear to be his attempts at straight singer-songwriter releases. On closer inspection, they retain all the quirk, improvisation and misleading qualities of his earlier compositions. O’Rourke clearly has a taste for the dark and uneasy. This is immediately apparent from his album titles, several of which are named after, or reference the films of Nicholas Roeg. On these albums he embodies many of the qualities of a Nicholas Roeg film, things never to be taken at face value, the music leading you one way and the lyrics telling a very different story. The title track on Halfway To A Threeway EP (Drag City/Domino 1999) at first comes across as a love song, a letter to a loved one explain a desire to take care and nurture, but as the story unravels you come to realise the true intentions. It is instead a tale of someone taking advantage of the vulnerable, and indulging in sexual fantasies, kinks and fetishes with a disabled subject. The dark lyrics fight against O’Rourke’s beautiful lilting guitar, and you are left thoroughly confused as to your feelings towards the narrator.
In a similar way, on the track Good Times from Insignificance LP (Drag City/Domino 2001) a simple two bar acoustic guitar lick takes us through unexpected confessions of dislike for a character. Musically, the riff adjusts ever so slightly with usually only one note difference on each pass as if an expression of the lyrics, always adjusting our view of the narrator, but only through slight slips in his dialogue. There are many darkly comic and memorable tracks on this album including Memory Lame and It’s All Down Hill From Here that make this a good in for anyone wanting to explore his music. However, this is not a typical example of O’Rourke’s work.
The latest in the “Roeg” series is The Visitor LP (Drag City/Domino 2009), a reference to the album made by David Bowie’s character in the film The Man Who Fell To Earth. The album consists of one 38 minute composition that is far closer to his original efforts before the introduction of vocals. The majority of the piece revolves around a solo acoustic guitar, much of which feels improvisational in the vein of Derek Bailey (clearly a big influence on O’Rourke). Much like Happy Days, it takes one idea and explores it for 40 minutes pushing it to the limits of listening. These works often seem more like experimentation than entertainment, but are they really that different? Unlike Happy Days, The Visitor sticks to the confines of it’s acoustic nature but still pushes in every direction.
Prior to the Roeg period, O’Rourke seemed deeply rooted in experimentation, avant-garde and freeform jazz. The interesting thing is, he never needs to stray far from this, but instead interprets it in more accessible and mainstream packages. I love this run of albums, and think they embody everything his early work explores. It became a fantastic gateway into his vast repertoire and also established themselves as firm favourites that never leave the record player.
Since this period in his career, O’Rourke has set up shop in Japan, and his music certainly seems to have embraced the culture. He has submerged himself back in a world of experimentation with sound and continues to produce exciting new material in his Old News series (Old News, 2011/2012). Today he seems (justly) regarded as a post-classical composer and his work continues to be prolific whether it be album releases, soundtrack composition, collaboration or producing other artists records.
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