360 records from 2000: 18. Jim O’Rourke: Jim:Computer:Hotel

Country: US
Artist: Male solo artist
Career: recording since ca. 1989
Language: Instrumental
Genre: Improvisation electronica


If you know me well, I may have shown you my Jim O’Rourke shrine. Jim is my God. Even his beard is divinely different from other people’s beards, a grizzled American primitive rather than a tonsured ‘amusement park USA’ weave.

He may be grumpy God – retreating from view for extended periods, making me wonder if he exists. A jealous God – guarding his gifts. A vengeful God – scrapping entire records because my offerings aren’t enough to pay for that orchestra he wanted. A capricious God – spending more time on perverse, chaotic work that’s probably improvised, than on considered, beautiful creations. But hey, what else is new?

So you know, I’m not going to let the fact that he didn’t really release any records in 2000 stop me from including one. This is a limited limited edition record which was part of a New York art exhibition and afterwards sold for charity (or something like that).

Yeah, I got it from the internet.

2001 would see O’Rourke unleash two great records – the monumental song exploration ‘Insignificance’ and its dark, electronic sibling ‘I’m happy and I’m singing and a 1, 2, 3, 4’. That second record was a compilation of diverse live solo electronica improvisations, further adapted and bent into shape for the record. ‘Jim: computer: hotel’ – the title says it – is O’Rourke in a hotel room one day running through the basic material he used for those live improvisations. It’s a preliminary study for ‘I’m happy…’ – and I’m happy it exists. It’s a guide to the heart of the difficult but rewarding music it ended up as. But apart from that I’ve come to like it better than the finished music. It’s my chanced to hear his musical thoughts in real time.

The heart is the 25 minute 3rd track (no titles, but it ended up as ‘1, 2, 3, 4’), a piece of music like dark stormclouds passing overhead, unsettling and imposing, a force of nature, the work of God.

No Youtube.

At its best: 3.