Jim O'Rourke (musician)

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Jim O'Rourke
Sonicyouthcolor11 (2756013796).jpg
O'Rourke performing with Sonic Youth in 2004
Background information
Born (1969-01-18) January 18, 1969 (age 54)
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Occupation(s)Musician, instrumentalist, composer, singer-songwriter, record producer
Instrument(s)Guitar, synthesizer, piano, electric bass guitar, hurdy-gurdy, vocals
Labels

Jim O'Rourke (born January 18, 1969) is an American musician, instrumentalist, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer. [1] He is best known for his numerous solo and collaborative music projects, many of which are instrumental, and has been acclaimed for his music that spans varied genres, including avant-garde styles such as ambient, noise and minimalism, and styles of rock like indie rock and post-rock. [2] He has been associated with the Chicago experimental and improv scene, as well as with New York City when he relocated to it in 2000 for his tenure as a member of American indie rock band Sonic Youth. He subsequently moved to Japan and has since been a Japanese resident. [3]

Contents

Biography

O'Rourke performing in Minneapolis, 2003 Jim O'Rourke-11.jpg
O'Rourke performing in Minneapolis, 2003

O'Rourke was born on January 18, 1969, in Chicago, Illinois. He is an alumnus of DePaul University.

O'Rourke has collaborated with Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Kim Gordon, Steve Shelley, Derek Bailey, Mats Gustafsson, Mayo Thompson, Brigitte Fontaine, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Merzbow, Nurse with Wound, Phill Niblock, Fennesz, Organum, Phew, Henry Kaiser and Flying Saucer Attack. He has produced and instrumentally contributed to albums by artists such as Sonic Youth, Wilco, Stereolab, Superchunk, Kahimi Karie, Quruli, John Fahey, Smog, Faust, Tony Conrad, The Red Krayola, Bobby Conn, Beth Orton, and U.S. Maple. He mixed Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album and produced their 2004 album, A Ghost Is Born , for which he won a Grammy Award for "Best Alternative Album". During the recording of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, O'Rourke collaborated with Wilco member Jeff Tweedy and pre-Wilco Glenn Kotche under the name Loose Fur. Their self-titled debut was released in 2003 with a follow-up in 2006 entitled Born Again in the USA . He also mixed the unfinished recordings that made up a planned third album by the late American singer-songwriter Judee Sill, recorded in 1974 and mixed by O'Rourke for a 2005 release. In 2006, O'Rourke mixed Joanna Newsom's album Ys , and in 2009, he also mixed several tracks on Newsom's follow up Have One On Me . [4]

O'Rourke has previously been a member of Illusion of Safety, Brise-Glace with Darin Gray and Dylan Posa, Gastr Del Sol [4] with David Grubbs [5] and Sonic Youth. Beginning in 1999 he played bass guitar, guitar and synthesizer with Sonic Youth, in addition to recording and mixing duties with the group. He withdrew as a full member in late 2005, but continued to play with them in some of their side projects.

O'Rourke has also released many albums under his own name on a variety of labels, exploring a range of electronic and avant-garde styles. [4] His most well-known works may be his series of releases on Drag City, which focus on more traditional songcraft: Bad Timing (1997), Eureka (1999), Insignificance (2001), The Visitor (2009) and Simple Songs (2015). The titles of the first four albums all refer to films by the British director Nicolas Roeg; the first three by direct reference to film titles, the fourth being titled after a fictional album within Roeg's film The Man Who Fell To Earth .

With music director Takehisa Kosugi, he played for the Merce Cunningham dance company for four years. He was a guitarist for the 1999 premiere of Cunningham's ballet Biped with Gavin Bryars in Berkeley, California.

O'Rourke received a 2001 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.

Since 2013, O'Rourke has used his Steamroom Bandcamp page to release reissues of rare and older material, as well as original newer pieces.

Work in films

Drag City discography

Partial solo discography

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<i>Bad Timing</i> (album) 1997 studio album by Jim ORourke

Bad Timing is a 1997 studio album by American musician Jim O'Rourke, and the first to be released by the Drag City label. Although O'Rourke had previously established himself with a prolific output of experimental music beginning in the late 1980s, this album marked the beginning of his series of albums released by Drag City focusing on more traditional instrumentation and song structures. It is an instrumental album, consisting largely of Jim O'Rourke's acoustic guitar playing, sometimes with additional instrumentation.

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Insignificance is the second singer-songwriter album by Jim O'Rourke, originally released on November 19, 2001 by Drag City. It is named after the Nicolas Roeg film of the same name. It peaked at number 35 on the UK Independent Albums Chart.

Loose Fur was an American rock supergroup comprising Wilco members Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche, along with Wilco collaborator and Sonic Youth's multi-instrumentalist Jim O'Rourke. The trio first convened in May 2000 in preparation for a Tweedy performance at a festival in Chicago. Tweedy was offered the opportunity to collaborate with an artist of his choosing, and he decided to work with O'Rourke. O'Rourke brought Kotche to a rehearsal session, and the trio recorded an album's worth of songs. The trio have since released two albums, 2003's Loose Fur and 2006's Born Again in the USA, for Drag City. The band has only toured once.

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<i>The Visitor</i> (Jim ORourke album) 2009 studio album by Jim ORourke

The Visitor is an instrumental album by American musician Jim O'Rourke. It was released on Drag City in 2009 on CD and LP, but not digitally by O'Rourke's request. O'Rourke played every instrument on the album, and it was all recorded in his home in Tokyo. It marks his first proper studio album in eight years since Insignificance, released in 2001, and is intended to be a continuation of that album, Eureka, and Bad Timing.

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References

  1. Strong, Martin C. (2000). The Great Rock Discography (5th ed.). Edinburgh: Mojo Books. p. 721. ISBN   1-84195-017-3.
  2. Cooper, Sean. "Jim O'Rourke – Biography". AllMusic. Retrieved September 9, 2020.
  3. Cohen, Jonathan (August 29, 2023). "From Japan, With Love: Catching Up With Jim O'Rourke". Spin . Retrieved November 23, 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 Richards, Sam (May 18, 2015). "Jim O'Rourke: indie's unsung perpetual polymath". The Guardian . Retrieved October 30, 2018.
  5. Strong, Martin C. (2003) The Great Indie Discography, Canongate, ISBN   1-84195-335-0, p. 522-3
  6. Bowe, Miles (July 26, 2018). "Catching Up With Jim O'Rourke". Stereogum.com. Retrieved July 27, 2018.
  7. Lim, Dennis (June 22, 2008). "Soft-Core Auteur Turns Attention to Radicals". The New York Times . Retrieved January 4, 2010.
  8. Ruiz, Matthew Ismael (4 May 2023). "Jim O'Rourke Details Hands That Bind Soundtrack Album, Shares New Song: Watch the Video". Pitchfork. Retrieved May 4, 2023.
  9. "Jim O'Rourke announces vinyl series for Editions Mego". tinymixtapes.com. April 14, 2011. Retrieved April 1, 2019.