Jim O'Rourke (musician)

For the baseball player see Jim O'Rourke (baseball player)

Jim O'Rourke

Jim O'Rourke (born January 18, 1969) is an American musician and producer. He was long associated with the Chicago experimental and improv scene. Around 2000 he relocated to New York City.

Known for his idiosyncratic tastes, and regarded as something of an expert on modern experimental music, he has released albums of jazz, noise and guitar rock music. O'Rourke has collaborated with the likes of Thurston Moore, Derek Bailey, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Nurse With Wound, Fennesz, Organum, Henry Kaiser, Flying Saucer Attack, and most recently mixed Joanna Newsom's album Ys.

He has produced albums by artists as varied as Wilco, Stereolab, Kahimi Karie, Quruli, John Fahey, Smog, Faust, Tony Conrad, Bobby Conn, Beth Orton, Joanna Newsom and U.S. Maple. He mixed Wilco's very successful Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album, which made many reviewers' top ten lists for 2002, and produced their 2004 album, A Ghost Is Born, for which he won a Grammy for "Best Alternative Album". During the recording of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, O'Rourke collaborated with Wilco member Jeff Tweedy and pre-Wilco Glenn Kotche, a veteran of the Chicago scene and O'Rourke's own solo albums, under the name Loose Fur. Their self-titled debut was released in 2003 with a follow-up in 2006 entitled Born Again in the USA.

O'Rourke has released a large number of albums and was once a member of Illusion of Safety, Gastr Del Sol and the Red Crayola. From 2000 he played bass guitar and guitar with Sonic Youth; he quit as a full member in 2005 to pursue his interest in filmmaking, but continues to play with them in some of their side projects.

With music director Takehisa Kosugi, he played for the Merce Cunningham dance company for 4 years.

Work in film

• He worked as a music consultant for the popular 2003 film, School of Rock.
• He scored the 2002 film Love Liza directed by Todd Louiso.
• He has also scored films by Werner Herzog, Olivier Assayas, Shinji Aoyama, Koji Wakamatsu and others.
• His own short films have been part of the 2004 and 2006 Whitney Biennial and the 2005 Rotterdam Film Festival.
• His three full-length albums for Drag City are named after three successive films by director Nicolas Roeg.

Partial solo discography

• Mizu No Nai Umi (vector7/ HEADZ54 2006)
• I’m Happy and I’m Singing and a 1, 2, 3, 4 (Mego 2001)
• Insignificance (Drag City Records 2001)
• Halfway to a Threeway EP (Drag City Records 1999)
• Eureka (Drag City Records 1999)
• Bad Timing (Drag City Records 1997)
• Happy Days (Revenant Records 1997)
• Terminal Pharmacy (Tzadik 1995)
• Rules of Reduction (Metamkine 1993)
• Remove the Need (Extreme Records 1993)
• Scend (Divided Records 1992)
• Disengage (Staalplaat 1992)
• Tamper (Extreme Records 1991)
• The Ground Below Above Our Heads (Entenpfuhl 1991)
• Secure on the Loose Rim (Sound of Pig 1991)
• Some Kind of Pagan (Sound of Pig 1989)

External links

• Complete discography and filmography
• Jim O'Rourke discography at MusicBrainz
• Discussion group at Yahoo
• Art of the States: Jim O'Rourke