[rating=7.00]
It’s been a long time since Jim O’Rourke has released a solo album, 2009’s The Visitor to be exact, and even longer since he released one with vocals, for that you need to go all the way back to 2001’s Insignificance. Titling this new effort Simple Songs is loaded as anyone familiar with this artists work already knows there are thousands of nooks and cranny’s to his sound even when he is breaking things down to a more verse-chorus-verse style.
Opener “Friends With Benefits” gives a great sense of what follows on the eight tracks presented here; stuttering easy rhythms, pianos, strings, multiple whispery built upon O’Rourke vocals and a gorgeous coda that ends the track too soon. Layers of instrumentation waft at you as the production rings loud and strong- placing things in the mid seventies sonically where big albums and their actual sound were sought after, as opposed to digital files with compressed audio easily discarded.
“That Weekend” supports tense violins cutting out before resolving while “Half Life Crisis” has an overloaded 70’s pop feel. “Hotel Blue” starts soothingly acoustic before building and like most of the album it puts O’Rourke’s vocals low in the mix, in the vein of Mark Knopfler. It makes dissecting what is being sung difficult but the titles and circular phrasing seems to be placing the singer at a relationship crossroads but even that is cloaked. The fact that he wrote/sings lyrics at all is a statement, now what that statement actually is though is never clear.
O’Rourke shines brightest however when it comes to the song arrangements and production, from the sparse “These Hands” to the rolling electric guitar riffs on “Last Year”. The drama swells impressively for the theatrical “End Of The Road” that piles on the schmaltz before closing Simple Songs with the almost six and half minute “All Your Love” where he instantly blames everyone for making him happy. A perfectly encapsulating mixed up romp whose chorus proclaims that “All your love/will never change me” nailing O’Rourke’s individualistic and satisfying career so far.
