Jim O'Rourke Resurfaces in Time Out Tokyo

Ever since Jim O'Rourke moved to Japan, interviews with the reclusive musician have become an increasingly rare occurrence. Honestly, we haven't really heard much from the guy outside of some press for his 2009 release The Visitor, his Burt Bacharach covers album and an appearance on Japanese TV singing Enka. Thankfully, Time Out Tokyo's James Hadfield managed to catch up with O'Rourke over the course of an extensive interview, touching on everything from his favorite Led Zeppelin album (Presence, naturally) to the cancelation of the I'll Be Your Mirror concert he was curating.

True to form, O'Rourke drops some of the most salient information late in the interview, announcing his intent to release a new record in the vein of Eureka and Insignifiance:

"I'm sure people would probably be happier if I was doing more of the song things, but I kind of want to keep that separate, because I'm almost done with the next song record – after 12 goddamn years."

He goes on to briefly describe the new record, explaining that he's hoping to finish and release it later this year. He also wants to play the songs live (though his comments on the futility of touring earlier in the interview seem to negate the possibility of performances outside of Japan):

"Lyrics and singing and rude, rude subjects. I've recorded, like, five of them already, and I just won't finish them… I don't know. Probably this year, I'll finally put it out, and then I really want to do the band show, really properly. The band show will probably be fairly loose – which is how I usually do it, actually. I don't tell the band which song we're going to play until we're about to play it on stage; I don't do setlists or anything like that."

O'Rourke also finds a moment to heap some praise on recent Delta Faucet spokesman Glenn Kotche:

"...those were people I'd played with for years, especially Darin Grey, the bass player, and [drummer] Glenn Kotche. Then I introduced Glenn to [Wilco frontman] Jeff Tweedy, and he became GLENN KOTCHE. Basically, I was spoilt, because for ten years I could never find another drummer who was Glenn Kotche – because there isn't."

Other major takeaways from the transcript: O'Rourke hates MP3s and Led Zeppelin's "D'yer Mak'er." For the time being, I'll be keeping my eye on Drag City's weekly newsletters, because a new Jim O'Rourke record can't come out soon enough.