First ever CD pressing! Cd in 6 panel digisleeve. Shutting Down Here marks a pivotal moment in the career of Jim O’Rourke, a composer celebrated for his restless innovation across experimental, electronic, and contemporary music. Originally commissioned by INA-GRM and first released in 2020, this 35-minute single-track album now returns in a long-awaited reissue, available for the first time on CD.

Described by O’Rourke himself as the “most meaningful” work of his career, Shutting Down Here weaves thirty years of creative evolution into a dense, immersive sound world. The piece draws on instrumental writing, field recordings, and electronic textures, blending acoustic instruments-including Eiko Ishibashi’s piano, Atsuko Hatano’s strings, and Eivind Lønning’s trumpet-into a shifting, enigmatic whole. The music unfolds gradually, balancing subtle tension and fleeting moments of melody, with O’Rourke favoring nuanced dynamics over dramatic gestures.

Critics have praised the album’s haunting atmosphere and its rich interplay of digital, analog, and environmental sounds, noting how it rewards focused listening with intricate detail and emotional depth. The composition resists traditional melodic structures, instead creating a sonic patchwork that is at once disorienting and captivating-its rare melodic passages rendered all the more poignant by their scarcity. The result is a work that transcends genre, exploring existential ambivalence and the interplay of positive and negative emotions within a single, cohesive narrative.

Shutting Down Here stands as a culmination of O’Rourke’s electroacoustic explorations, bridging his early fascination with the GRM and his mature, boundary-defying artistry. This reissue reaffirms the album’s status as one of his most accomplished and rewarding achievements-a must-listen for fans of experimental music and contemporary sound art.