Experimental hero Jim O'Rourke is releasing his album Simple Songs in a matter of days (May 19), but just in case that wasn't already enough for fans to digest, he has rolled out another full-lenth. This one is a collaboration with PBK, and it's available now.
The album is called Unidentified Again, and it's out through Pica Disc. It consists of four pieces of music split across two LPs, with each track clocking in at 17 minutes or longer. The music is jointly credited to O'Rourke and veteran sound-shaper Phillip B. Klingler, and it was made between 2014 and 2015.
In a statement, Klingler explained that he met O'Rourke in 1989 and they remained friends into the '90s, but they lost touch for 15 years. They resumed correspondence in 2012, and this album is the result. He described the precess like this:
Rather suddenly Jim surprised me with source material I could use. I immediately went to work on it, with the idea that approximately 40 minutes would just about be ideal for an LP project. The sound material Jim sent was likely composed on his Serge modular synth. We'd been discussing synthesizer heroes of ours – Jim sharing his love of Roland Kayn's expressive work and I'm always going on about David Tudor. I worked on the first two mixes, but I dug Jim's sources so much I didn't do any kind of manipulation on them. I built audio environments for his sounds to live in, and they do sound alive, like synthetic landscapes with birds or animals of some primitive, or alien, origin and, of course, also huge drones that could be electrical storms. I sent Jim my own sources and he came up with two beautiful mixes, each quite different from the other.
Below, scroll past the tracklist to hear a four-minute extract of music from Unidentified Again. The album is available to purchase here.
Thanks to Tiny Mix Tapes for the tip.
Unidentified Again:
A1. The Turning Night
B1. Myths in Translation
C1. End of the Landscape
D1. Long Lain in the Stream
The album is called Unidentified Again, and it's out through Pica Disc. It consists of four pieces of music split across two LPs, with each track clocking in at 17 minutes or longer. The music is jointly credited to O'Rourke and veteran sound-shaper Phillip B. Klingler, and it was made between 2014 and 2015.
In a statement, Klingler explained that he met O'Rourke in 1989 and they remained friends into the '90s, but they lost touch for 15 years. They resumed correspondence in 2012, and this album is the result. He described the precess like this:
Rather suddenly Jim surprised me with source material I could use. I immediately went to work on it, with the idea that approximately 40 minutes would just about be ideal for an LP project. The sound material Jim sent was likely composed on his Serge modular synth. We'd been discussing synthesizer heroes of ours – Jim sharing his love of Roland Kayn's expressive work and I'm always going on about David Tudor. I worked on the first two mixes, but I dug Jim's sources so much I didn't do any kind of manipulation on them. I built audio environments for his sounds to live in, and they do sound alive, like synthetic landscapes with birds or animals of some primitive, or alien, origin and, of course, also huge drones that could be electrical storms. I sent Jim my own sources and he came up with two beautiful mixes, each quite different from the other.
Below, scroll past the tracklist to hear a four-minute extract of music from Unidentified Again. The album is available to purchase here.
Thanks to Tiny Mix Tapes for the tip.
Unidentified Again:
A1. The Turning Night
B1. Myths in Translation
C1. End of the Landscape
D1. Long Lain in the Stream
