Upgrade & Afterlife

Have you been wondering what happened to the once ubiquotuous producer/guitarist/ improvisor/composer Jim O'Rourke? Well, he's spent the last 3 years living in Japan, writing film criticism and working on a 32 minute long piece of music called "The Visitor." Also, he seems to be struggling with some sort of existential crisis as a musician: Jim O'Rourke: Once Insider, Now Outsider, and Liking It

SINCE 2005 Jim O’Rourke, the once perennially busy American musician and producer, has lived in a small apartment in Japan, keeping to himself. He had flown there for work at least 50 times in earlier years; every time he returned to the United States, he said, his mood sank. At first his relocation was on and off, during the long process of acquiring an artist’s work visa. Now it seems pretty permanent. “It’s the only place I’m happy,” he said during a recent telephone interview, with a perfectionist’s mordant cackle.

Believe it or not, kids, there was a time when O'Rourke seemed destined to be a 21st Century Brian Eno - a guy with one foot in the avant-garde and one foot in cutting edge rock. He was playing with improv legends like Derek Bailey and Henry kaiser when he was a teenager; made fantastic electro-acoustic music with Gastr del Sol; helped "rediscover" John Fahey; etc. He made GREAT solo albums that were simultaneosly avant-classical, traditionally folky, and pleasantly poppy. He seemed to be on his way when he produced Wilco's "Yankee Foxtrot Hotel" and then spent 3 years helping revitalize Sonic Youth. Instead, that turned out to be all he could handle

But something in him changed over the past few years. Back in Chicago he was the most animated advocate for little-known or underrated music that I’d ever met; he knew everything and connected the dots for you. Now, he said, “I don’t know that guy anymore.” He feels he’s learned what he wants to learn. He works mostly for and by himself and doesn’t hang out with many musicians in Tokyo.

“I don’t think they’re interesting,” he said. “I don’t really listen to music much anymore. I haven’t had a stereo for the last three years.”

Great, so he doesn't like to listen to music, doesn't want to discover new music, doesn't hang out with musicians, and refers to himself in the third person ("I don't know that guy anymore"). Then there's the way he recorded his new album:

It’s a nearly orchestral, fully instrumental album, his first in eight years. He made it alone in his home studio — except for the piano tracks, which he recorded in a rented rehearsal space — so it takes its place alongside the small number of other high-level pop records made completely or mostly by one person, including Todd Rundgren’s “Something/Anything?” and Stevie Wonder’s “Music of My Mind.” Mr. O’Rourke gives the sense that its gingerly dynamics were dictated by thin walls and respect for his neighbors.

“The Visitor” is so easy on the ears that it disguises its density. “There are parts where there are almost 200 tracks of instruments, but I didn’t want it to sound difficult,” he said. “I didn’t want it to be virtuosic.”

Consisting of one 32-minute track, “The Visitor” took three years to make, including a year to mix.

That's about the saddest thing I've read lately. O'Rourke was, among other things, one of the great collaborators in his heyday.Now, he's sitting by himself in a Tokyo apartment obsessively recording himself. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But, he's gotten so anti-social that he spent 6 months learning to play a trombone part (which ended up low in the mix), rather than spend a day with a trombone player.

O'Rourke was playing and conceiving music at a very high level when he was in high school, but like many people before him, he appears to have flamed out after a spectacular burst of creativity. I hope at least one of his many friends from the past can bring him out of whatever shell he has withdrawn into.