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
Old News 9
Jim O'Rourke's Old News series continues with this, the ninth installment. This new release is unique in the series in that it is the first to feature an all-new composition. The work here showcases the kind of experimental concrete drift which O'Rourke has been exploring for a number of years, resulting in a magical blend of musical abstraction. With the measured hand and alchemical technique of a François Bayle classic, Jim has us spellbound with A-side, transmuting spectral whistles in…
The love robots
Jim O'Rourke, guitar. Paal Nilssen-Love : drums. Lasse Marhaug, electronics. Recorded at Gok Sound Tokyo by Yoshiaki Kondo February 2011. Mixed by James Plotkin. Coproduced by Pica et PNL. Gatefold cover. 500 copies. Housing, parasites and hammering textures.
Now While It's Still Warm Let Us Pour in All the Mystery
CD version. "Following on from 2012's acclaimed Imikizushi (BT 007CD/LP), Now While It's Still Warm Let Us Pour in All the Mystery is the fourth release from the established power trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke, and Oren Ambarchi, recorded in January 2012 at their yearly concert at SuperDeluxe, Tokyo. While the trio's two previous double LP releases featured sprawling, side-long performances, the music here is presented in six shorter pieces, each one displaying a different side of the tr…
Old news #8
More archival works from Jim O'Rourke see the light of day on Old News #8. Recorded in 1991-1992. Originally released as part of Disengage by Staalplaat. Special thanks to Geert-Jan Hobijn and Frans de Waard for their years of support. Jeff Cortazzo (trombone), Sue Wolf (cello), Michael Prime (shortwave), Geoff Fontaine (voice), Gretchen Wells, Matt Guerierri, Scott Shell. "Merely" recorded live at DePaul University, 1991 -- Carrie Biolo (percussion). Remastered in 2012, Steamroom Tokyo. This on…
Imikuzushi
The next chapter for the trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke and Oren Ambarchi, extending the power-trio strategies of their previous LP with intense music that transcends rock and electronic music. "The yearly summit of Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke and Oren Ambarchi continues with Imikuzushi, which finds the group extending the power-trio strategies of 2011's highly-praised In A Flash Everything Comes Together As One There Is No Need For A Subject (BT 005LP) and bringing to them a newly-sustained in…
Old News 7
The prolific experimenter known to friends and fans alike as Jim O’Rourke, is gearing up for the next installment of his vinyl series Old News, following last year’s sweet #5 and sweeter #6 . Each installment of the series provides a vinyl-only glimpse into O’Rourke’s electronic synth archive, This time around, we are gifted with tracks such as “Welcome to the Django,” a two-sided mid-90s excursion of O’Rourke’s first experiments with a Serge modular system, and “Tacere Fas,” the piece originall…
Unreleased?
Rune Grammofon are delighted to present the second album from this excellent Swedish trio, something of a supergroup with members from already well-known projects. This time they collaborate with the legendary Jim O'Rourke. With their hypnotic, psychedelic jazz of sorts, they have carved out a different sound than any of the groups they are normally associated with, now enhanced by the vital contributions from O'Rourke. Sax player, improviser, composer and fervent record collector, Mats …
Are You Going To Stop... In Bern?
"In fact, the art of O'Rourke and Connors lies in letting one feel the immobility withi n movement, and in instilling movement right at the heart of immobility. It's almost superfluous to say that this music belongs to the realm of dreams, it's music for the mind, abstract and yet wholly present to itself and therefore totally concrete too. The two guitarists set off in search of sound. Their quest is wildly raging now and then, but only for a brief moment, most of the time it's contempla…
And That's The Story Of Jazz...
And that's the story of jazz... Get it? Well, maybe you had to be there when legendary saxophonist Akira Sakata, guitarist Jim O'Rourke and bombast rhythm crew of percussionist Chris Corsano and double bassist Darin Gray (aka Chikamorachi) jumped in the van for a Japanese tour. This two CD set documents their 2008 jaunt -- not the first and far from last -- in blistering detail. Shades of Last Exit, Coltrane's Live in Seattle and even Kousokuya appear here but this quartet has nailed its own uni…
Shinjuku Growl
Smalltown Superjazzz is very proud to present two new albums by The Thing. And this time it is The Thing with guitars! And none others than two of the best guitar players in the improv world today; Otomo Yoshihide and Jim O`Rourke. Both albums are recorded live at Pit Inn in Tokyo, Japan. Shinkjuku Growl with Jim O`Rourke was recorded the 4th of February 2008 and Shinkuju Crawl with Otomo Yoshihide was recorded the 2nd of October 2007 (and was also recorded by Jim O`Rourke). These two live docum…
Old News #6
Beloved experimental soundsmith Jim O'Rourke is at it again, having just announced his umpteenth release of the year. Back in the spring, the Japan-based artist revealed he would be starting up his Old News series of releases that mined the "analogue synth and tape works (both studio and live) from the depths of Jim O'Rourke's archive." Though volume five was issued just this past June, O'Rourke has issued volume six by the end of this summer. . A new 70+ minute electronic piece split over four …
Plastic Palace People Vol. 2
The departure from Volume 1 starts here! Found sounds, field recordings and and more, echoing to you from way back in 1992. Straight out of Achen! Second in this on-going series of collaborative works recorded in the early 90’s by christoph heemann & jim o’rourke, later conceptually aligned with the mythos of noel scott “walker” engel ... contrasting vol. 1’s “synth freakout” bluster entirely, this is instead a single, extended musique concrète piece (heavily reminiscent of luc ferrari’s later…
In A Flash Everything Comes Together As One
March 2011 release: phenomenal new power trio moves from a group that easily rivals Fushitsusha or Seijaku in intensity of attack. Here Haino is mostly featured on guitar and vocals with occasional forays into lapsteel (!) and air synth while O’Rourke plays bass and Ambarchi plays drums. This is some of the most squealing iconoclastic psychedelic rock of Haino’s career and his guitar playing is back at a Double Live/Hendrixoid peak, with endlessly overloaded single note guitar solos wres…
Indeed
Awesome record, exactly as good as you’d expect it to be (Keith Fullerton Withman) "While Oren Ambarchi and Jim O’Rourke have collaborated in a number of forms, from remixes to their acclaimed trio with Keiji Haino, Indeed is their first duo album. One long electro-acoustic exploration (presented here as two side-long pieces), what Ambarchi and O’Rourke proffer up here is also melodic and approachable, bringing to mind the warm post-minimalism of composers like Alvin Curran, David Behrman and L…
Old News #5
First instalment in this new o series providing a long overdue and much needed vinyl-only glimpse into Jim O'rourke's electronic/synth music archive* 'Old News No.5' introduces a "nearly regular series of vinyl albums documenting analog synth and tape works (both studio and live) from the depths of Jim O'Rourke's archive, spanning a near quarter of a century in the field." Side A 'Pedal & Pedal' features 15 minutes recorded at Super Deluxe, Tokyo, 2010. It unfurls a series of tender pasto…
Plastic Palace People Vol. 1
Jim O'Rourke and Christoph Heeman have been collaborating since 1991; that's before MP3s, before witch house, and before the release of Arachnophobia. Hell, that's back when also-ran comedian Michael Keaton was still Batman. The two musicians have now seen sense to offer up a collection of rare, unreleased recordings from their probably massive archives and this Scott Walker-referencing disc is the result. Those familiar with Heeman's work, or O'Rourke's more experimental side will no doubt be u…
6 Oscillators \'87 / Guitar \'88
Lucky find, long out of print: No Fun Productions present an unearthed pairing of archive recordings from avant-garde polymath Jim O' Rourke, who's at his most ferocious on these recordings. From a title like '6 Oscillators '87' you figure the piece could go one of two ways: warm, disciplined Eliane Radigue-type drone or flailing chaos. Jim goes for the latter option, rattling through a host of pitch modulations and noise assaults, working his way through a sophisticated noise composition that a…
Bloomington, Indiana... Autumn
Recently reworked and remastered, this LP was recorded in the 1990s, uniting Lee Ranaldo and Jim O'Rourke (before the Sonic Youth years spent together, of course) with German tape music specialist (and H.N.A.S. member) Christoph Heemann. 'Bloomington, Indiana' is based upon a Lee Ranaldo spoken-word reading, and was originally recorded in the Netherlands during 1994. It features O'Rourke and Heemann manipulating Ranaldo's reading via magnetic tape, creating a morphing new soundscape from the SY …
Tima formosa
'Black Truffle presents a stunning document of the debut meeting of international trio Oren AMBARCHI, Jim O'Rourke and Keiji HAINO. Recorded live at the Playhouse, Kitakyushu, Japan in January 2009, Tima Formosa retains a mysteriously alien atmosphere throughout its three lengthy explorations with AMBARCHI's mesmerizing textures and signature, deep guitar tones beautifully merging with O'Rourke's Tudor-esque piano-feedback interjections. HAINO provides the icing on the cake via his melancholic,…
The Visitor
Breathing in, breathing out. Tide comes in, tide goes out. The sun rises and it also sets: beginnings and endings. These are the first impressions given by The Visitor: a build-up and break-down. One seamless, 38-minute piece of music that completely engages its listeners. An extremely thoughtful piece that even a year later, still retains all of the qualities it had upon first listen. This record made me realize the full potential music can have when someone who actually gives a damn does somet…