Listen: Jim O’Rourke – Through The Night Softly
MP3: Jim O’Rourke – Through The Night Softly

And this one sounds like ‘Do You Know The Way To San Jose?‘ FFS!!!!1

Royal Mile, Edinburgh

Listen: Jim O’Rourke – Something Big
MP3: Jim O’Rourke – Something Big

This post got me thinking about Jim O’Rourke a bit actually. He’s made some amazing music. I remember I had ’94 the Long Way’ basically on repeat after a stellar review about it from Pitchfork‘s sporadic Resonant Frequency column.

Royal Mile, Edinburgh

I’m basically just gonna cut and paste what the guy said because it summed it up nicely for me…

“Jim O’Rourke: “94 the Long Way”
Multi-faceted composer Jim O’Rourke used to say that he called his 1997 steel string opusBad Timing not just in homage to the Nicolas Roeg film, but also because his own sense of tempo tended to wander. There is a loose, rootless quality to this 14-minute track in its opening section, as it speeds up and slows down and doubles back, seeming to search for some unnamable thing without much luck. But then, at the 3:30 mark, we find out what “it” is, as he begins the relentlessly repetitive minimalist plucks on the chord that will guide the piece the rest of its way. From there, he adds one voice after another– piano, pedal steel, trombone, organ– each new instrument filling a hole in the tune you subliminally knew existed but couldn’t quite put your finger on. Until, finally, the entire thing, bursting with hope and dripping with a peculiarly American optimism, is on the rails and steaming west over the horizon.”

Listen: Jim O’Rourke – 94 the Long Way
MP3: Jim O’Rourke - 94 the Long Way