Riffing on the back of an incredible run, Week-End Records returns with what might just be their best record to date, “Lifetime of a Flower”, by none other than the duo of Eiko Ishibashi & Jim O'Rourke. A marvel of creative brilliance, pushing electroacoustic practice into beautiful conceptual realms, encountering two of the most important artists working today at their absolute best, it's impossible to sing it enough praise.

Earlier this year we wrote up the release of Julius Eastman’s “Stay On It”, issued by the fledgling imprint, Week-End Records, an offshoot of the highly regarded Week-End fest in Cologne, Germany. The label quickly followed with Suzanne Ciani’s “Improvisation On Four Sequences”, and the book “I feel everything you say, I feel everything you hear”, both of which were incredible. With that fantastic run behind them, they could have called the year the quits and ridden on a high, but they’ve managed another LP that even further ups their game, “Lifetime of a Flower”, a brilliant duo collaboration from Eiko Ishibashi & Jim O'Rourke. A whirlwind of electroacoustic mastery, it’s a stunning accomplishment that’s high among the best records we’ve heard this year.

One of the most prolific and exciting artists working in contemporary field of experimental sound, since his emergence in Chicago underground during the late '80s, Jim O’Rourke has continuously traversed an astoundingly diverse range of musical materiality - pop, free improvisation, electronic and electro acoustic music, and beyond - folding each territory of exploration into a startlingly singular practice. During the early 2010s, O’Rourke embarked upon one of the most noteworthy collaborations of his career with his partner Eiko Ishibashi, a remarkable composer and instrumentalist who’s been carving a singular path for decades on the Japanese scene and recently came to international prominence with her highly acclaimed soundtrack for Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Academy Award winning film “Drive My Car”. Over the years Ishibashi and O'Rourke have worked constantly on each other’s albums, in addition to numerous ensembles, producing remarkable results, but until now they have yet to record purely as a duo. Thankfully, “Lifetime of a Flower” brought that wait to an end and it doesn’t disappoint.

The roots of “Lifetime of a Flower” grew from an installation created for the exhibition “Flowers! (Flowers in 20th and 21st Century Art)” at the Museum Ostwall in Dortmund, Germany, earlier this year. Within the work, the duo set parameters, but allowed the process itself to literally grow uncontrollably: they planted seeds in the garden of their Japanese house and filmed as the plants grew for the duration of the exhibition. Visitors were able to watch the stream in real time, while listening to a composition that reflected the organic process in sound. It is those compositions that comprise the two sides of this LP.

Intertwining radically forward-thinking approaches to synthesis and processing with stunning work by Ishibashi on flute, “Lifetime of a Flower” calls to mind a golden age, now long past, where the abstractions of experimental and avant-garde music were deployed - partially within film - to profound narrative effect. Each of the album’s pieces brilliantly balances the otherworldly against a deep sense of organic life, allowing the sources of each sound - rising and falling within sheets of texture, tonality, harmonic and structural complexity - to become secondary to the sum total of their effect.

Truly immersive and brilliant, “Lifetime of a Flower” is an album within which to get lost. Writhing with creative rigor and immediacy, it’s yet another proof of the incredible potential tapped when incredible artists commune within the terms of a deep mutual respect. While late in the year, it’s a contender for the best of 2022.