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Jim O’Rourke’s Electronic Sound: A Blend of Gentleness and Tension
The sun was still high in the sky, but Jim O’Rourke appeared almost on time. The electronic sounds sounded improvised, but they seemed to be as meticulously composed as on his former solo album “The Visitor” (2009). There is no seamless transition from song to song. The sound blended with the swaying trees, birdsong, and the movements and murmurs of people slowly gathering around. The electronically generated sounds do not exist in the natural world, and they should have been at odds with each other.
Jim O’Rourke’s approach is different from the gentleness of music for plants advocated by Mort Gerson and others, which is sometimes stiff and strained. It seemed to reflect the attitude and frank realization of the attitude that humans should take as intruders living on this borrowed space.
