Jim O'Rourke - Some Kind of Pagan (1989)

Some Kind of Pagan by Jim O'Rourke

Jim O'Rourke recorded "Milena Dravic." track 10 on The Miracle of Levitation. By 1995, O'Rourke was already well established as a leading figure of improvised noise in Chicago. He first began releasing tapes with Elvis Messiahs in the late eighties. He released his debut solo tape Some Kind of Pagan in 1989 on the Sound of Pig label.

While listening to Some Kind of Pagan, you have to occasionally look at the cassette art to remind yourself that everything you hear is "solo guitar." The second track "Bound Up with Memory" is the rawest version of this, just Jim delicately manipulating the feedback interplay between his guitar and amp. The amplitudes of this feedback is further textured with the amplified sounds of prominent plucks, fingers leaving frets and sliding along strings. "Solving Problems Until They All Disappear" is similarly unadorned though with more layering and some effects, juxtaposing harmonics with deeper tones. The emanating sounds only just retain the strains of the guitar but also begin to fool you into thinking they couldn't possibly come from a guitar: instead, perhaps, it's the inner workings of a clock...or at least multiple instruments approximating the inner workings of a clock.

The remaining songs further build on the experimentation through more layering and with more tape and digital manipulation. It's still guitar but it becomes much harder to discern the sounds as such. "Hold These Goddamn Chickens" contrasts tiny, almost atomic, flowing bits with the gargantuan toll of "bells." Across the whole tape, the strings, when they're still recognizable, can sound rapid and miniature or enlarged, thickened, stretched out as if across a warehouse, capturing both the sound of the instrument and the reverberation within the room even if the room is only simulated.

All of these explorations lead up to the final track "Heaven Is No Longer Paved in Gold." Everything tried before is tried again: every effect and idea. The guitar is itself and everything else. It's close and far away, amplified and pure, incredibly small and incredibly large. At the dawn of his musical career, Jim O'Rourke is already working out his own kind of string theory.

Here is the discography surrounding Jim O'Rourke's debut tape:

EE (1988 tape as Elvis Messiahs)

Dead (1989 tape as The Messiahs)

Some Kind of Pagan

Pass the Headphones!!