Jim O'Rourke at Work on "Ridiculously Elaborate" Next LP, Film Scores, and That Loose Fur Thing
Jim O'Rourke, he of Dutch-boy mane, is currently working on music that will become his next self-titled solo
record, according to reports from Rollingstone.com. The eagerly anticipated follow-up to 2001's awe-inspiring
one-two punch of Insignificance and I'm Happy, and I'm Singing, and a 1,2,3,4 is apparently in
the early stages of production, but O'Rourke reportedly plans on making it a much broader affair than his
previous work. "I'm still writing it," he reveals in the website's interview, "it's ridiculously elaborate.
We'll see, I may go broke making it. There's a full orchestra on it."
This information comes on the heels of news that O'Rourke has signed on as the "Music Composer" for a film
entitled Love Liza that is expected to be released on both coasts before the calendar flips over to
February. The film stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the widower of a wife who committed suicide and Kathy
Bates as his mother-in-law; and is directed by Todd Louiso (best known, perhaps, for his work as
record store clerk Dick in High Fidelity). O'Rourke, no stranger to the studio, has also done
soundtrack work for other films in the past, including Things Behind the Sun and Picture of
Light.
O'Rourke's musical connection to the cinema is fairly well documented: his Eureka album directly
influenced the epic Shinji Aoyama film of the same name. In fact, Aoyama has stated that the music of
O'Rourke and Sonic Youth, and the classic Western film The Searchers by John Ford, were all
inspirational to his work. He used the song "Eureka" at the film's conclusion. It is also not coincidental
that three of O'Rourke's albums have shared titles with the works of one of his favorite directors, Nicolas
Roeg (The Man Who Fell to Earth): Insignificance, Eureka, and Bad Timing were
all originally Roeg titles.
As a member of Sonic Youth, O'Rourke has also contributed music to the soundtrack for a newly released
French film entitled Demonlover, which was released in Europe on November 18th. Sonic Youth added
eight tracks to the release. The film, directed by Olivier Assayas, stars Chloe Sevigny and Gina Gershon
as white-collar criminals working in the world of 3D cyberporn. (Sounds pretty hot, even with subtitles.)
According to an interview with guitarist Lee Ranaldo, the band worked on the tracks while simultaneously
recording Murray Street. The group also worked very closely with the director in creating the music
for his vision that, according to their site, is "explained in a long essay... in the CD booklet." The
savant-experimental rock band produced the songs in the summer and fall of 2001. In addition to the Sonic
Youth tracks, there are also four additional songs on the soundtrack by Goldfrapp, Death In Vegas, Sub
Squad, and Soulfly. No U.S. release date is currently scheduled for either the Demonlover soundtrack
or film, but the soundtrack is available on German import. The Sonic Youth tracks include:
Move Away
Control Freak
Safe in Hell
Electric Noisefield
Slambient Desire
Melodikim
Teknikal Illprovisation
Superdead
O'Rourke got together with Sonic Youth prior to its shallow 2000 release, NYC Ghosts & Flowers, which
he played on and produced. But by last year, O'Rourke had moved from his hometown of Chiccy-G to take up
full-time avant-residence in New York City and become a full-fledged member of the band. And just when
the SY faithful were ready to have his head for that previous effort, he has this year been lauded as taking
the lower Manhattan art-punk gods back to their former glory with the Murray Street release. According
to the Youth's website, Murray Street is where the band's studio is located, and is also where one of
the engines from a plane that hit the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 landed.
And finally, Jim O'Rourke's schedule will find itself at a peak of sorts just three weeks from now, when
Drag City drops his Loose Fur collaboration with Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche of Wilco on January
28th. As previously reported by Pitchfork, the album is said to feature the three artists mixing a little
of O'Rourke's experimentalism with some of Tweedy's folk-inspired rock into a mostly spontaneous package.
Kotche, speaking (once again) to Rollingstone.com, revealed that, "A lot of those [Loose Fur songs]
were first takes. We were all having fun. It wasn't anyone's record. When we record Jim's stuff, he has a
pretty defined idea of what he wants and he's able to articulate that. Same thing with Jeff. But because
they were new to each other and I was new to Jeff, we just let the songs happen." The record will consist
of six tracks spanning forty minutes of music. In other words, expect lengthy voyages into the experimental
realms of pop.
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