Jim O'Rourke

Halfway to a Bam-Bam

Steamroom 52 seems to be a JOR birthday release, but it's not listed on the regular Steamroom page?

It's listed now...

Best that you do this for me is also up on Bandcamp.

Steamroom 53 up today too. The man doesn't stop!

what a giant. occasionally i'm just really moved by his dedication to exploration, usually when everything else in the world seems shit.

'6 views of a secret' turns into an organ fugue or something. fantastic.

I've never really paid much attention to this guy, which is odd because he ticks all the right boxes, but I'm listening to Steamroom 53 right now and it's incredible.

St 53 is great - one of the most "ambient" of his releases. All the recent Steamrooms are really nice.

Week-End Mixtape:

https://www.mixcloud.com/weekendfest/week-end-mixtape-18-jim-orourke/

That's a fantastic mix, thanks for posting. When I first opened it in Mixcloud the tracklist was available when swiping, but it now seems only available for premium members. The blurb describes the tracks to an extent, it's neither in order nor complete though.

Włodzimierz Kotoński
"Time Captives" by Kingdom Come
Autechre "Sinistrail Sentinel”
Jaap Vink “Stroma”
Sand “Helicopter”
Frank Zappa
Julius Eastman
Xenakis’s saxophone quartet “Xas”
Wim Mertens “Circles”

Hmm... yes, I'm sure the tracklist was visible on desktop also, but now it's gone. Should've copypasted it.

apologies for horrible formatting:

#
Time
Song
Artist
01
no time
Antiphonae
Wlodzimierz Kotonski
02
no time
Xas
Iannis Xenakis
03
no time
Listen to the Silence
George Russell
04
no time
Stroma
Jaap Vink
05
no time
Helicopter
Sand
06
no time
Sinistrel Sentinel
Autechre
07
no time
Shun X
Hino Terumasa
08
no time
Wait Until Day
Loren Connors
09
no time
Time Captives
Kingdom Come
10
no time
Low Budget Music for Orchestra
Frank Zappa
11
no time
Joy Boy
Julius Eastman
12
no time
Circles
Wim Mertens

(via https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mixcloud-with-tracklist/jgghogcekaldifaiifpnbfnpmmpiengb?hl=en)

Thanks toby!

Seconded, thanks Toby! There really is an addon for everything :)

attention! jim o'rourke is doing an online event monday mar 1!
part of this series, there is a fb event but i didn't want to link to it https://ess.org/option

Cool, thanks for the heads up!

Jim had a guest spot at NTS on the 19th, playing an hour of minimal/experimental cuts. The show can be found here (tracklist is included)

That live convo La Lechera mentioned is happening now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8AUUVq6Wck

Making Eureka, telling Vandermark "Play stupider! Stupider! Saturday Night Live! More like David Sandborn!" And Vandermark says "I can't do it!" And he says, "That's why I want you to do it!"

That was so great. Very interesting to learn that everything on Loose Fur's Born Again In the USA--except for vocals--was recorded with Shure SM57 mics. Just because he wanted to see how it would sound!

^ Love the sound of (and songs on!) that second Loose Fur album--sort of as much the unofficial sequel to Insignificance as to LF1 in certain ways.

I also found it very subtly telling how when O'Rourke demurs that he's not the most social person, Vandermark counters with "Well, you are and you aren't"...

Ha, I've always loved that anecdote about Eureka, which was the subject of a blog post I wrote 18 (!!!) years ago.

Interesting review on All About Jazz (!!) of the Another Timbre-release.

I've *finally* got through this interview. It's kind of interesting to see how Jim handles his uh... divorce from the USA (recording engineer, Roeg/Drag City records, Sonic Youth, Wilco, Loose Fur, etc) and never really returned.

My rationale for posting this every so often in a few different places is to increase the chance that I or the world won't forget it exists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJWxkYu8WgU

anyone wanna recommend their favorite steamrooms? i have 40, 50, and 53. all great.

I've only heard 52 and 53 so far. The latter blew my mind, just a sublime marriage of ambient compositional principles and so-called contemporary classical, whereas the former was decent enough, but a bit nondescript in comparison. If RYM is anything to go by, they seem to highly rate nos. 4, 5, 17, 30, 46, 47 & 50. I wouldn't mind making my way through the whole series in chronological order, but that's quite the commitment.

46 is as good as cosmic synth music gets imo

nice

Jim O'Rourke - Too Compliment lp announcement

pretty epic write-up / review of Too Compliment towards the bottom of this feature. it's the very last review in the series. nice DG interview, too-
https://toneglow.substack.com/p/tone-glow-065-david-grubbs

*epic, or obnoxious, depending on how you're feeling. i can't help but calboti (chuckling a little bit on the inside, man) at the fact that JOR doesn't put this stuff out on cd, forcing me to listen to his output on mp3 (or flac), often on laptop speakers. is vinyl really superior for this type of music? Too Compliment recalls the vibe of some of the more dense, percussive Steamroom releases.. harsh, alien world -sounding, synthesized environments. maybe it's more dynamic and concise. i suppose that i'm in the minority of listeners, desiring a CD release (or any physical format, for that matter) for this stuff

always think vinyl is pretty dumb for this stuff, too, fwiw

*epic, or obnoxious, depending on how you're feeling. i can't help but calboti (chuckling a little bit on the inside, man) at the fact that JOR doesn't put this stuff out on cd, forcing me to listen to his output on mp3 (or flac), often on laptop speakers. is vinyl really superior for this type of music? Too Compliment recalls the vibe of some of the more dense, percussive Steamroom releases.. harsh, alien world -sounding, synthesized environments. maybe it's more dynamic and concise. i suppose that i'm in the minority of listeners, desiring a CD release (or any physical format, for that matter) for this stuff

Interesting point, I was thinking the same thing. I can't help but thinking vinyl is a very expensive luxury product compared to cd's and downloads. Shipping vinyl is also not cheap, adding to the price of the product. With small quantities being released to cover the production costs, it's no surprise that vinyl releases such as this new O'Rourke album sell out quickly.

I'm with you, I haven't bought a new O'Rourke record physically since Simple Songs. I continue to be bummed by all of this being vinyl only, but we are in the minority. While some niche labels are sticking with the format, others are sprinting away from it. Numero Group is already done with the format completely and less than half of the 2021 releases Drag City have announced have gotten CD releases. I kinda get it, but then when I see they get cassette releases (ffs!), I really don't get the economics that drive which particular allegedly dead format gets a release and which doesn't.

CDs will be cool again eventually

Ironically, I've always felt O'Rourke's production/mix style lent itself more to digital formats? which would seem to go against his own assessment. I own several latter day albums on vinyl but the dynamics of the music ("Shutting Down Here", "The Visitor", "Simple Songs") make it a more pleasurable listen via Tidal. I keep the vinyl out of affection for the format and the artist

there is not one album in existence that better on CD than on vinyl is there?

CDs will be cool again eventually

― brimstead, Friday, May 28, 2021 7:21 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

thankfully not yet, they're still cheap! used cd shops are a fucking boon right now.

Going the Wu Tang, one-of-one edition route

one million dollars

$5k pharmabros be perkin'

Jim O’Rourke has something like 50 billion albums out there and 49 billion ninety-hundred ninety-nine million of them are ambient/experimental bollocks. I like acoustic folk guitar stuff like Bad Timing and The Visitor. Does he have anything else like that?

closest is his song albums, eureka, insignificance and simple songs

I like Eureka a lot, didn’t much care for Insignificance, sounded a bit too rock band-ish for me. Simple Songs I haven’t heard. Will definitely check out. Thanks!

The Halfway to a Threeway EP is my favorite in that folk/acoustic vein. The two Loose Fur albums have some songs (real songs) in that style, too.

xps as opposed to those of his regular releases which were only bought by one person, but not by design

i was listening to either robert wyatt's rock bottom or ruth is stranger than richard the orther day thinking, this is very eureka. i think somewhere ilx jim fans agree that mid-late period Gorky'S zygotic mynci (spanish dance troupe onwards) is very jimo. or i guess you could try those ralph towner / john abercrombie duo discs or abercrombie's "characters"
this: https://laloi.bandcamp.com/album/feed-a-pigeon-breed-a-rat or other zach phillips has a comparable tangled proggy bacharach vibe.

oh yeah the first loose fur album is one of the best things both o'rourke & tweedy have done