Jim O’Rourke
Tamper

[Extreme, 1991; Drag City, 2008]

Styles: experimental ambient minimal classical business
Others: Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveros, Rune Grammafon stuff

Jim O’Rourke gets the reissue treatment from Drag City, the Chicago label better known for hyphenated folk stalwarts like Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Joanna Newsom, two artists for whom O’Rourke has done engineering or production work in the past. On Tamper, we get a much less accessible O’Rourke, reminiscent of the innovative instrumentalist who has frequented the likes of Derek Bailey, Eddie Prevost, and Keith Rowe since his college days. The three classically-minded pieces on this record dilate and deepen through quarter-hour crossfades, attaining violent crescendos and murmuring in near silence with generous stretches of overlapping, single-note loops in between. For those who appreciate drone and minimal composition, it’s quite intriguing stuff.

“Spirits Never Forgive” swells patiently toward a climactic, birthlike highpoint, starting with nearly inaudible pulses before queasy, cosmic oscillators jangle through each other and Tony Conrad-style violins squeal away like agitated bats. There may be a clarinet at the bottom of all this, but the sounds are stretched so much that instrumentation seems irrelevant; texture and mood are more central concerns. “He Felt the Patient Memory of a Reluctant Sea” is downright mournful, tracing wobbly orbits through de-tuned, echo-heavy wavelengths. “Ascend Through Unspoken Shadow” begins with a feedback shitstorm; sharp blocks of sound cleave into and through each other, resulting in a texture far more abrasive than in the two more contemplative tracks that open the record. On all three pieces, O’Rourke deftly welds a vehicle for experimental, classical, and noise music, without allowing his layered tones to veer too far into any one of those domains.

All in all, Tamper is a worthy reissue of the high caliber one would expect from someone of O’Rourke’s stature. Although the original release dates back to 1991, it sounds perfectly relevant in the context of contemporary experimental work. This should give us pause: If, some 17 years after its original release, this ‘experimental’ record still sounds fresh, we can and should praise the foresight of its creator, but we should also question the ingenuity of his would-be successors. Tamper should serve as a challenge to today’s electro-acoustic mavens to renew both the sound and structure of their work.

1. Spirits Never Forgive 2. He Felt the Patient Memory of a Reluctant Sea 3. Ascend Through Unspoken Shadow