2024 Stock. Part two of the multi-part Jim O'Rourke 'Old Timing' reissue series is Tamper, from 1991. Tamper is a set of three acoustic instrumental compositions recorded on analog tape during the final days of the first digital wave (we're at the end of at least the third wave nowadays), when everyone but a certain young schoolboy in short pants were looking towards CDs and DATs as the things of the future. Fools! As both those purely transitory formats fade into obsolescence (what's DAT?), Tamper's analog sound rises again -- and even though it comes to you on the frighteningly emaciated CD format, it's still a reminder of the reward that pure sound before all definition has to offer us. The spaced-out minimalism of Tamper is as forward-looking today as it was 17 years ago -- and as such, it's a seminal work in Jim O'Rourke's catalog. That's what this reissue series is all about, bringing it all back home to some of the young master's lesser-known works -- all remastered and shit. And with Tamper, the goal is to get back to listening to the sound rather than what we expect of it -- the literal sound of a piano as opposed to us hearing our expectations regarding the playing of a piano. As sweet and virginal as all this sounds, we the listener find ourselves straining to hear unvarnished acoustical sound throughout the album -- there's some of that here, but there's definitely some pixie dust in Jim's methods. Tamper's three pieces move quite fluidly along -- so much so, that you might never consider that they're actually mapped out in a constant series of crossfades.

No particular sound lasts more than 10 or 20 seconds, a process which interprets things in its own mind- (and ear-) bending manner -- and gives Tamper a blazed trail all of its own!