Jim O’Rourke
Simple Songs
[Drag City]
On the last song of Simple Songs, Jim O’Rourke repeats the line ‘All your love/will never change me’ as a mantra and indeed it is as is if the old Jim O’Rourke is back, unchanged. This is the one who released a trio of delicately orchestrated, misanthropy-soaked, Nicolas Roeg-referencing masterpieces (Bad Timing, Eureka and Insignificance) on Drag City around the turn of the century, rather than the one who subbed in for late-era Sonic Youth or made impenetrable electro-acoustic improv records with Merzbow and Fennesz.
Simple Songs feeds directly into the lineage of his Drag City material. While 2009’s The Visitor was cut from the same sonic cloth, that cloth was used to make curtains, or wallpaper, or something that slipped off into the background too easily. This record instead picks up the baton seamlessly from Insignificance, with songs which are equal parts prickly and pretty: O’Rourke spits barbs like ‘You can tell from your face/that you’re a charity case’ (perhaps even aimed at himself) over a sweetly lurching piano groove that’s decorated in gnarled ’70s rock leads and parping chamber ensemble arrangements. The highlight of this warmly welcome return is when JO’R reaches up in his vocal range into his seldom used growl during Hotel Blue, hinting at the wellsping of heart behind his churlish façade.
Words: Ian Lamont
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