Jim O'Rourke - Insignificance, Vinyl LP
Jim O'Rourke - Insignificance, Vinyl LP
Factory sealed.
The opener, ‘All Downhill from Here’ alone pops a hilarious pie into the face of your average O’Rourke follower’s expectations. It’s a red herring too, of course, because in Jim’s hands the screaming love of rock n’roll is still not just “only rock n’roll.” Instead, ‘Insignificance’ consists of rock plus: multiple musical allusions, layers of discreet noises, great playing from all the players and, to top it all off, funny pop-rock tunes laced with lyric arsenic.
‘Insignificance’ widens the screen of the O’Rourke sound, along the way you'll find a riff or two that one can truly ride. There’s more than one classic invitation for the lead vocalist to sneer and shout over it all - but of course, our Jim prefers instead more to murmur and moan quite melodically, to most sensual effect. There’s a spacious ballad to cool you down, then another one of those sick love songs in the mold of ‘Halfway to a Threeway,’ as well. Cut quickly with a skeleton crew after two years of indecision, ‘Insignificance’ brims with a newfound ‘immaturity’.
