Jim O'Rourke - I'm Happy, and I'm Singing, and a 1, 2, 3, 4
(Mego)
Through the last half of the 1990s, computer-created music grew just as exponentially as the computer industry did. Power goes up, accessability goes up, and prices go way down, giving any crusty artiste not only the means to store hours of music in digital high fidelity but also tools capable of rearranging, mangling, and generally just fucking up what he has just recorded (or, in more cases, copied from another source). There may be just as many laptop musicians now as there are punk bands, giving this relatively new field of music not just an imposing breadth but also a lack of definability. As the field continues to grow, more and more artists look to join in on the fun, which leads to this album—just what we've been waiting for—Jim O'Rourke's first laptop album.
Wait a second here. What? Who exactly has been sitting around waiting for a Jim O'Rourke laptop album? Was anyone really waiting around for Jim O'Rourke to come by and interpret the genre under his own terms? Were we sitting around waiting for Rob Mazurek to finally make that first laptop album? Did that album (under the name Orton Socket, released on O'Rourke's Moikai label) do anything to the field of laptop-created music other than annoy some lost people who were stuck wondering whether this really was made by that same guy who plays cornet in Isotope 217 and Chicago Underground? Well, whether the world has been waiting for it or not, O'Rourke's first foray into laptop-created music is here, and it's got a cutesy little title to boot, I'm Happy, and I'm Singing, and a 1, 2, 3, 4.
Unlike Mazurek's unapproachable miniature soundscapes, O'Rourke's laptop music is characteristically O'Rourke. Those who have heard Bad Timing or Happy Days will not be too surprised or disturbed by what sounds O'Rourke has cranked out of his machine. The songs are the same sort of fractured and deconstructed folk songs O'Rourke created before he found his love for pop; the sounds may be more electronic in nature, but the structures come from that same section of O'Rourke's left lobe.
The first track, "I'm Happy," is the busiest and most abstract track on the album, mixing and matching trilling, alarm-like sounds that fluctuate at purposefully mismatched frequencies. The most amazing thing about this track is that nothing here grates—no sounds shrill, no tones misalign or sound inharmonious. Instead, a dizzying effect is created that occupies and clutters the mind before relinquishing to a soft, subdued low-end drone.
The next track, "And I'm Singing," is the most structured song on this three song album, feeling like a collage of two or three folk songs. The laptop gives O'Rourke an easy way to manipulate and intertwine the structures of the songs, but, possibly more importantly, the tone shaping power of the software allows O'Rourke to give more force to the song, altering the tones to harsher, more unexpected sounds, and them altering the tone again to create contrast. Being by far the most accessible track, the melodies are clear and in the foreground... you can almost "Sing" along.
The third and final track, "And a 1, 2, 3, 4," is the antimatter to the matter of the first two songs. Completely ambient and relatively formless, the song flows at a glacial pace, its slow string midis morphing into unsettling, alien noises, and then morphing back again. The song hints towards a noisy, UFO-takeoff ending, but never follows through, the alien noises drifting back into the background, leaving only silence and faint robotic chatter.
Jim O'Rourke's first laptop album isn't a landmark for laptop albums or a landmark for O'Rourke himself. Instead it is just an experiment that goes surprisingly well—to new way for O'Rourke to deconstruct his deconstructed song styles. The album isn't as strong as his pre-pop Fahey-isms, but it is enjoyable... maybe not what the world has been waiting for, but a welcome addition for all O'Rourke fans.
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