Archive Dive: Jim O'Rourke at ESS
As a part of the ongoing work of The Creative Audio Archive at ESS, we present Archive Dive - a regular newsletter featuring unheard recordings and ephemera related to the collections housed in the CAA. Items shared here are In Copyright: Education Use Permitted. By clicking the private links below, you agree that you will not make public, copy, distribute, or otherwise put to use any of the recordings featured here without the written consent of ESS and/or the rights holder(s), except for educational purposes. For more information on the recordings and/or collections included below, please contact matt@ess.org or visit: http://www.creativeaudioarchive.org.
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The ESS Quarantine Concerts Series kicks off tomorrow, (Thursday) with what promises to be an incredible season of virtual performances, interviews, and other stream activations like the first of a series of talks curated by bassist Luke Stewart, a Million Tongues event this Sunday, and the first of 2021's Option Series concerts...
I will be hopping on the stream Saturday night, presenting film & video materials from the Sun Ra / El Saturn Collection and an interview with composer, filmmaker Phill Niblock. I will be broadcasting some unusual finds from a previously yet to be assessed box labelled "Miscellaneous Film, etc.." - including Phill's film of Sun Ra & Arkestra, "The Magic Sun" - and a bonus program of Phill's early filmmaking. Tune in, 7pm Central time!
Today, I've been happy to sift through the collection with a directive to find materials featuring the polymath composer / guitarist / songwriter / producer Jim O'Rourke - who comes to ESS' stream for an Option concert & interview hosted by Ken Vandermark on March 1st.
A well-known figure in Chicago music before moving to New York (when he was playing with and recording Sonic Youth) and then Japan, where his is now based - O'Rourke's path collided with ESS early on in his career. According to an interview w/ founder Lou Mallozzi, O'Rourke worked as a freelance engineer at ESS, recordings a number of early projects at the studio and engineering a handful more...
The earliest recording of the artist in our collections comes from the fantastic Sounds From Chicago series, where he is interviewed on Episode 15, titled "Industrial Music" and curated and hosted by Warren Fischer (who studied at SAIC & went on to form the art-pop group Fischerspooner).
After two pieces by Fischer's Collisionmusic, comes a short interview with O'Rourke - just 21 years old at the time.
Perhaps mirroring how quickly or how much O'Rourke's profile grew within experimental music - the next recordings found in the archives are both from ESS' benefit events. One particularly special one comes from a performance at Logan Square Auditorium in 2001. Monica Kendrick wrote a preview for the show in the Chicago Reader:
REVERBERATE: AN EVENING OF AURAL AROUSAL 5/17, LOGAN SQUARE AUDITORIUM
For 15 years, Andersonville's Experimental Sound Studio has provided a nice-price recording studio, offered hands-on workshops in recording and sound-making techniques, provided a home away from home for visiting composers and sound artists, and even hosted a few notable festivals. And for 15 years sound artist Lou Mallozzi, a faculty member at the School of the Art Institute, has helped to guide the institution through money woes, relocations, and, most tragically, the death of cofounder Dawn Mallozzi two years ago, all the while receiving a fraction of the attention of other local creativity boosters. In this fairly high-profile and high-style benefit for ESS, in the gorgeous and underutilized Logan Square Auditorium, Mallozzi and friends present an installation/performance by Jim O'Rourke...
Preceding the releases, later that year, of two of O'Rourke's best (in this writer's humble opinion) LPs: the song-focused Insignificance & electronic-based I'm Happy & I'm Singing and a 1 2 3 4, the recording here seems to share DNA with the latter. Tagged in the reader as "installation / performance" - we hear four explorations of manipulated sounds, using audio materials musical and environmental, reverberating through the auditorium...
Lastly, we share another benefit recording from ten years earlier, 1991, hosted at Club Lower Links. After a comical introduction from the Lynn Book - we have a fantastic trio recording of O'Rourke improvising with composer/clarinetist Gene Coleman and violinist Katherine Hughes. Bless the Chicago Reader, who's Reynaldo Migaldi interviewed ESS founders Dawn and Lou Mallozzi and previewed the stellar lineup and event:
Tonight at Club Lower Links, 954 W. Newport, seven local musicians associated with ESS--two duos and a trio--will perform in a benefit for the organization, which needs the money to buy new recording equipment. Trombone virtuoso/computer-music specialist George Lewis and reedman/flutist/instrument builder Douglas Ewart both come from the AACM. Hamid Drake and Michael Zerang are percussionists who have been exploring the sonic possibilities of traditional Middle Eastern frame drums, among other things. Gene Coleman, Katherine Hughes, and Jim O'Rourke all slip back and forth across the invisible lines that divide classical music from jazz and rock.
Bless the Reader for also maintaining this archive of wonderful writing on music! Following the trio is a fantastic set from the great and long running duo of percussionists Hamid Drake and Michael Zerang. On a second tape is the duo of George Lewis and Douglas Ewart - email me if you'd like to hear it.
Enjoy. See you on the stream this Saturday! I am looking forward to sharing my conversation with Phill - and can't wait to see what else our Option & TQC Curators have in store for us as the season hits. Be in touch with any memories, comments, questions, concerns.
All the best,
-Matt Mehlan
Archives & Media Manager, Experimental Sound Studio
About the Creative Audio Archive at ESS:
The Creative Audio Archive (CAA) at Experimental Sound Studio is a Chicago based center for the preservation and investigation of innovative and experimental sonic arts and music. With collections from Sun Ra / El Saturn, Links Hall, Malachi Ritscher, Studio Henry, and Experimental Sound Studio (its parent organization), among others - CAA was formed for the historical preservation of recordings, print, and visual ephemera related to avant-garde and exploratory sound and music.
The CAA's public programming works to fulfill its mission of stewardship, preservation, and accessibility through live events, artist commissions and residencies, and research fellowships.