Jim O'Rourke

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

xp thanks for mentioning that Zach Phillips album; I had been meaning to check it out. "Tangled proggy Bacharach vibe" is right, and I love the avant radio show concept. So good

I have spent most of today listening to Bad Timing, Halfway to Threeway and Eureka. He is ridiculously good. I swear 'The Workplace' is like walking through the world, only with six inches of air in the soles of one's shoes.

Steamroom 57 is up on the Bandcamp, and it's an absolute trip. The piece is titled "between 2 and 6 a.m." and it sounds to me like the soundtrack to a series of dreams one might have during those hours

https://www.nts.live/shows/jim-o-rourke

once a month he picks tunes I see.

Also this-from March - playing on Drive My Car soundtrack

https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/03/25/eiko-ishibashi-drive-my-car/

Much like the film, Ishibashi’s soundtrack is diametrically opposite to the prevailing cinematic trends in Japan. “Japanese film soundtracks are just wall-to-wall cloying emotional music,” she says. “It always sounds like a continuous trailer.” To which O’Rourke adds: “The way the Japanese film industry works, you have very little time to do the soundtrack. There’s very little real instrumental music in Japanese films now. Most soundtracks are done by one person on a keyboard. Eiko’s soundtrack is so different that people here overlook it. It doesn’t operate in telling you what your emotions are.”

eiko ishibashi also has a semi-regular nts show btw:

https://www.nts.live/shows/eiko-ishibashi

I watched Drive My Car last week and was excited to discover that he played on the soundtrack. It's worth a listen, even if you haven't seen the movie.

x-post -- oh nice

the NTS radio shows are great

checked the latest one, could not believe that costin mireanu track.

Incredible interview on the Noisextra podcast last week:
https://www.noisextra.com/2022/08/10/in-conversation-with-jim-orourke-fenn-oberg-sonic-youth-gastr-del-sol/

Also a very good interview in Libération (FR) a week or so back.

bzzzzz brhmmmmmzzzz

A free download on his Bandcamp page, not sure how long it will be available.

Happy Birthday,Jim🎂🎉👏⚡️ pic.twitter.com/8o00L8eriC

— eikoishibashi (@Eiko_Ishibashi) January 18, 2023

https://www.spin.com/2023/08/jim-o-rourke-sonic-youth-steamroom-interview/

Jack’s score for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest — it’s obvious I’ve ripped that off my entire life (laughs).

I did work on a record with him (Will Oldham) once, but it wasn’t ‘with’ him. It was an EP he did with Rian Murphy called All Most Here, which originally was going to be songs Will wrote, Rian produced, and they’d send off to people like Polly Jean Harvey to sing. Rian asked me to do the arrangements, which I think were added to by Archer Prewitt. In the end, Will ended up singing all the songs himself. He’s still an enigma to me.

There's a Mojo podcast and it looks like half the episodes have only just become available?
Anyway, Big Jim is a guest: https://planetradio.co.uk/podcasts/the-mojo-record-club/id-2176269/

Some interesting guests elsewhere too: Thurston, Barry Adamson, Robert Forster.

For those outside of the UK, you need a VPN.

It's on Spotify in the US.

he's still doing his monthly nts show. always an embarrassment of riches, not exactly sentimental listening of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxX1vo966ks

I am listening to all the Steamrooms in order to find the diamonds. I'm making notes! So far Steamroom 3 is a real keeper, it's incredible, micropolyphonic dissolving via Shepard tones into monolithic moments of diatonic calm, it's like what every composer dreams of achieving. Steamroom 8 is early, from 1990, a static ambient shiny drone film score, it makes for a very relaxing and compelling hour

Cool!
Looking forward to updates...