Pitchfork

Not content with just having released a new pop record for Drag City last month, the always-prolific Jim O'Rourke has just issued yet another brand new full-length through the Austrian IDM imprint Mego, which is home to such next-levelists as Fennesz, Pita, and Francisco López. The record, created with much assistance from computer software, isn't a damn thing like his other new album, the traditionally rock-ish Insignificance; the label calls it "equal parts schizoid pop, cracked minimalism, concrete drama and melancholic contemplation."

n Titled I'm Happy, and I'm Singing, and a 1, 2, 3, 4, the disc features three extended tracks that alternate between highly melodic passages and dense, layered discordance. Mego goes on to tell us to "imagine the Powerbook as a springboard to explore oneself inside... not a machine for accentuating the inhuman, but a machine for embracing, and giving voice to the more delicate elements of the inner human." And you know, if you think of it in those terms, it actually does sound kind of like an octopus sodomizing a fat, transsexual manbaby.

n I'm Happy, and I'm Singing, and a 1, 2, 3, 4 was released to Austrian record stores on December 3rd, and should be hitting U.S. stores right about now. Streaming MP3s are available at the official Mego website.