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Jim O'Rourke | Insignificance

Jim goes the Southern Boogie route this time around.
CD, Domino/PIAS

Tekst: Alex Tobin

Publicatiedatum: 19 november 2001

Not wanting to create a lacklustre facsimile of his previous album 'Eureka', Chicago jack-of-all-trades Jim O'Rourke wrote, recorded, and mixed 'Insignificance' in a mere three weeks. Instead of making another "built in the studio" record, he stayed away from the super-arranged pop of his last effort, instead opting for the lower-key, folksy, DIY attitude this time around. 'Insignificance', recorded with the help of Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, Silver Jew Tim Barnes, and long-time O'Rourke stalwarts Darin Gray and Glenn Kotche, is a punchier, rockier affair. 'All Downhill From Here' kick-starts like a Lynyrd Skynyrd southern refried boogie, with its taut, straight-ahead, and muscular form, interspersed with almost pastoral breaks. This is followed by the minor-key beauty of the title track. O'Rourke's singing limitations quickly become clear, but this all serves to give the song a Steely Dan-like vibe, as we're whisked away on a sonic carpet not wholly unlike something written, recorded, and mixed in the mid-1970s. This applies to most of the seven songs on 'Insignificance'. 'Therefore I Am' could well be The Beach Boys reaching out to us via shards of Super Furry Animals and The Strokes. It's nice to see that something exciting can be created with the help of a few simple chords. Bill Withers, along with the ghost of Harry Nilsson, also pops up on 'Memory Lane', with yet another infectious guitar line, while 'Good Times' is the closest O'Rourke comes to sounding like his former production client Bill Callaghan (Smog). Followed by 'Get A Room' and 'Life Goes Off', these three songs form the slow closing to an album full of hooks, punches, and surprises. It is only here that O'Rourke's music occasionally meanders a little too long ('Get A Room'), transforming itself into music for a hungover Sunday morning. Still, 'Insignificance' shows, once again, that Jim O'Rourke is far from a noise terrorist or a mere Powerbook anarchist (another album, 'I'm Happy, and I'm Singing, and 1,2,3,4' is out later this month on Mego). The man knows how to write a song or two.

http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/jim-o-rourke/insignificance/1012/
Meer Jim O'Rourke op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/jim-o-rourke