a r t i s t : Jim O'Rourke
t i t l e : The Visitor
d a t e : 2009
l a b e l : Drag City
g e n r e : Avantgarde
r l s. d a t e : Sep/2009
t r a c k s : 01
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 47,4 MB
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The cat's back in the bag again - try not to throw it in the
river this time! This one is special: Jim O'Rourke has
delivered his first new solo album since 2001. The Visitor
hasn't made us wait as long as Chinese Democracy...but it has
made us wince a lot less. Call it Jim's Japanese Democracy - a
republic of one inside the studio where it was recorded and
mixed. The Visitor is a seriously all-O'Rourke affair - all
the sounds you hear are Jim and Jim alone. So this time you
can't blame any of those session dudes and their bloodless
line readings - teh chill you're getting is a one-hundred
percent O'Rourke effect. As a matter of fact, it might be more
like 200 percent - some of The Visitor is tracked so deep, it
took two hundred tracks to hold it all. To Jim's credit,
though, the mix sounds very minimal, very straightforward -
not like several hundred tracks at all. Call it his invisible
wall of sound - Spector without the gun. But what Jim lacks in
firearms, he makes up for in desire.
The Visitor is full of percolating banjos, smooth electric
leads, organic, kicking drum sounds, the flickering of shakers
to the left and right, mellow but ominous woodwinds, sounds
that indicate "vintage" (before turning left and running out
the door), sonic jokes, sonic tear-jerkers, sonic jerkoffs,
all wrapped in spacious yet subtle left to right placement of
everything in the picture. There's moments of low comedy next
to high drama and juicy melancholy with a seeming lack of
regard for proximity (which, of course, is just what Jim wants
you to think). Plus - sudden surging rhythms! Jim O'Rourke is
back!
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01-The Visitor [38:04]
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38:04 min