Jim O'Rourke
Jim O'Rourke is one of the most important characters in music today in many different aspects. His wide-ranging musical career comprises producing records for mope rockers Smog, guitar player John Fahey, and art rockers U.S. Maple, remixing tunes for the Japanese noise legend Merzbow, in addition to his solo career and working with bands like Gastr del Sol, Tortoise and Sonic Youth. He is first of all known for his guitar work, but has also been active on the improv scene with for example Mats Gustafsson, playing various instruments
Jim O'Rourke is one of the most important characters in music today in many different aspects. His wide-ranging musical career comprises producing records for mope rockers Smog, guitar player John Fahey, and art rockers U.S. Maple, remixing tunes for the Japanese noise legend Merzbow, in addition to his solo career and working with bands like Gastr del Sol, Tortoise and Sonic Youth. He is first of all known for his guitar work, but has also been active on the improv scene with for example Mats Gustafsson, playing various instruments
Member of: Bonjintan
Patience Soup
Patience Soup presents the entirety of a live performance from the trio of Oren Ambarchi, Jim O'Rourke, and Japanese underground legend Phew that took place at the Kitakyushu Performing Arts Center on November 4th, 2015. Known to many listeners outside Japan primarily for her early collaborations with members of Can, Phew has been undergoing something of a creative renaissance in the last few years, prolifically recording and releasing a body of work that strips away the band arrangements presen…
Side A / Side B
Colour vinyl edition of 500 copies, housed in a screen printed polythene bag. Includes a download dropped to your account. Following last year’s acclaimed 'Sleep Like It's Winter’ album and a steady supply of releases via his own Steamroom, Jim O’Rourke returns with a rare vinyl outing; a reworking of source material provided by Alessio Natalizia a.k.a. Not Waving. Spread across two longform pieces, O'Rourke channels Popol Vuh on the spiralling, synth-heavy 15 minute A-side, while the flip sound…
Hence
Hence is the third collaborative release from Oren Ambarchi and Jim O'Rourke, following on from Behold
(EMEGO 176LP, 2015). Building on the refined combination of electronics
and acoustic instrumentation found on their previous releases, Hence presents two side-long pieces combining synthesizers, heavily effected guitar tones, and tabla rhythms played by special guest Uzhaan.
On the first side, an explosive opening chord sends out ripples of
sparse, irregularly pulsing guitar and synthesizer…
Sleep Like It's Winter
Jim O’Rourke returns with his first physical solo album since 2015’s Simple Songs, following a relatively steady supply of download-only releases via his Steamroom Bandcamp (over 20 of them since 2015) and collaborations with John Duncan, Keiji Haino, Oren Ambarchi, Peter Brötzmann, Merzbow, Fennesz and others in the interim. Anyone familiar with his exceptional Steamroom output will have an inkling of what to expect here; this is Jim O’Rourke at his most meditative, absorbing and quietly subver…
This Dazzling, Genuine "Difference" Now Where Shall It Go?
Black Truffle presents the eighth full-length release from the trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke, and Oren Ambarchi. Over the course of four LP sides, the October 2014 concert documented here ranges from rock power trio dynamics to maelstroms of analog electronics. Once again, the three demonstrate their commitment to pushing into new areas of instrumental exploration and group interaction. Where their previous releases featured extended vocal workouts from Haino, his vocalizations here ar…
Hard Off
Against the odds of geography - continuously coming together within various collaborations and combinations of the three, Giovanni Di Domenico, Jim O'Rourke, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto have begun to assemble one of the most exciting bodies of organized sound to have appeared in recent years. The trio’s second outing under the moniker Delivery Health is no exception to the rule. Recorded in Tokyo between 2012 and 2013 and emerging on the ambitious Silent Water imprint, Hard Off sidesteps signifiers and e…
Wakes on Cerulean
Timely outing from two grand masters of exploratory electronics. Kassel Jaeger is the moniker of French musician François Bonnet who works at the GRM and has released a number of books including the highly regarded The Order Of Sounds: A Sonorous Archipelago, published by Urbanomic in 2016. Jim O'Rourke is known to most through his explorations of the song and shapes, the high and low, the east and south. Wakes On Cerulean is a joint adventure where process folds upon process and the operation …
It's Hard For Me To Say I'm Sorry
LP version. Despite decades of activity and having crossed paths in various collaborations, this release presents the first-ever duo recording from two of the most highly regarded citizens of planet experimental electronic. Individually, Jim O'Rourke and Christian Fennesz have been responsible for numerous legendary works that merge the traditional avant-garde with contemporary sensibilities. On It's Hard For Me To Say I'm Sorry these giants of experimental electronic practice come together f…
I wonder if you noticed
The remarkable series of releases from the trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke, and Oren Ambarchi continues with I wonder if you noticed "I'm sorry" Is such a lovely sound It keeps things from getting worse, which presents the entirety of an 80-minute set performed at Tokyo's SuperDeluxe in March 2014. While the trio's 2012 performance was divided into two releases (BT 011LP (2014) and BT 012LP (2015)), the single extended performance presented here ranges widely over terrain both new and fam…
Duos With Guitars
Giovanni Di Domenico (piano, Rhodes), With Norberto Lobo (acoustic guitar), Tetuzi Akiyama (acoustic guitar) and Jim O'Rourke (electric guitar). Recorded during the course of 3 years (from 2011 to 2013) in various locations in Brussels and Tokyo, this double LP puts together 3 of the most uncompromising and original guitar players of the globe (there should have been a fourth great guitar player, the late Hans Reichel, but unfortunately he passed away days before asking him to join the project),…
Delivery Health
Delivery Health is the highly idiosyncratic trio of Giovanni Di Domenico, Jim O'Rourke and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto. The recording was done in Tokyo's great GOK Sound, directly on 24 tracks tape recorder, and was mixed at Steamroom, Tokyo, by Jim O'Rourke himself. The blend of early 70's ECM drumsound, long unfolding travelogues and the great trasparency of the mix, give to this record a breadth and deepness that will give hard times catagorizing it's music, where jazz (the one of Abercrombie's Gatewa…
Arco
** small repress available ** A breathtaking album, nothing short of a masterpiece!!!! Starting from this edition* onward, our Zeit Composers series will go vinyl, and will definitely open up to international artists beside the usual Italian suspects. The first release in the new vinyl-only series features the collaborative effort of Belgium-based talented composer Giovanni di Domenico (of Italian origins) and avant-everything master Jim O'Rourke. A long composition for string and electro…
Flying Basket
Flying Basket is a double album of avant jazz, discord and deconstructed rock by five master practitioners. It also marks the debut collaboration by a pair of Japan's legendary transgressors -- saxophonist Akira Sakata and noise pioneer Masami Akita, aka Merzbow. For the past ten years Sakata has rededicated himself to fiery free jazz alongside guitarist Jim O’Rourke and the monstrous rhythm section that is Chikamorachi -- Chris Corsano (drums) and Darin Gray (double bass, percussion). Sakata's…
Simple Songs
"Yes, Simple Songs is an album of songs sung by Jim O'Rourke all the way through! It has been ten years since Jim's voice rang out from a new album. Ah, when James Michael was just a wee lad, he sang all the time, with a lovely little lilt to his voice, like all the children do. But the songs he sang gave his parents no end of consternation: 'Great Decei-verrr! Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines... of the Vir-gin Mar-eeee!' Aye, if only we'd-a been there -- little Jimmy's career would have started…
Unidentified Again
About "Unidentified Again" : "I first met Jim O'Rourke in 1989. We corresponded by mail and would talk on the phone frequently. Jim was in college at that time and he was very excited about music. He sent me mixtapes, we would talk about his love of Van Dyke Parks, his work with KK Null or Henry Kaiser. I also remember he sent me Godflesh' "Streetcleaner" album which he likened to King Crimson's "Red". Jim's soundwork was always special and I released one of his compositions on my Assembla…
Two City Blues 1
A pair of discrete releases, each documenting a separate set of a concert given by the trio, along with "Two City Blues 1", recorded on one intense night at Tokyo's Shinjuku Pit Inn. A trio of three towering figures, German free jazz legend Peter Brötzmann, Japanese avant-garde wizard Keiji Haino, and wildly versatile American composer and musician Jim O'Rourke, recorded by Yasuo Fujimura on November 23, 2010. Brötzmann: alto and tenor saxophones, tarogato, and clarinet; Haino: guitar, voice, sh…
From the Host of Late-Comers
"From the Host of Late-Comers represents the latest challenge manifested by Plastic Palace People, the duo of Jim O'Rourke and Christoph Heemann, who have been collaborating continuously (even though in a largely unnoticed fashion) since 1989. Previous Streamline releases from Mimir contain some of their earlier work; Plastic Palace People first saw release in 2011. After two releases in quick succession, it has been a long wait for more, and finally here is a recent piece of work from the…
Behold
Behold is the second collaborative release from Oren Ambarchi and Jim O'Rourke following the 2011 LP Indeed. Ambarchi and O'Rourke seamlessly blend field recordings, electronics, guitar, drums, and other acoustic instruments into a subtle combination of krautrock, minimalism, and classic free flowing electronics. Side A takes the listener into the Fourth World adventures pioneered by Jon Hassell on Fourth World Music Vol. I: Possible Musics (GB 019CD/LP), while the flip seems like an unlikel…
Tea Time for Those Determined to Completely Exhaust Every Bit of
"At this point, it can justifiably be said that Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke and Oren Ambarchi have become one of the leading groups in experimental music. This, their sixth release, presents the entire second set of the trio's March 2013 concert at SuperDeluxe (the first set is available on Black Truffle as Only Wanting to Melt Beautifully Away Is It a Lack of Contentment That Stirs Affection for Those Things Said to Be as of Yet Unseen). While the first set of the evening saw the trio branch…
Two City Blues 2
One of two different sets, along with "Two City Blues 1", recorded on one intense night at Tokyo's Shinjuku Pit Inn. A trio of three towering figures, German free jazz legend Peter Brötzmann, Japanese avant-garde wizard Keiji Haino, and wildly versatile American composer and musician Jim O'Rourke, recorded by Yasuo Fujimura on November 23, 2010. Brötzmann: alto and tenor saxophones, tarogato, and clarinet; Haino: guitar, voice, shamisen; O'Rourke: guitar.