Jim O'Rourke's musical career has been an interesting one to follow. From his days partnering with David Grubbs in Gastr del Sol to his highly experimental and minimalist works like Happy Days and Disengage, O'Rourke has shown himself to be a multi-talented musician. After Bad Timing came out, which echoes John Fahey--rumors began circulating that O'Rourke was going to release a pop album. And that's why you can still find his pop albums in the experimental section of your local record store. Eureka was released on March 2, 1999.
Eureka opens up with Prelude to 100 or 220/Women Of The World which repeats the phrase "Women of the world, take over cause if you don't the world will come to an end" with a backdrop of slowly powertooled guitar, and choruses from the speakers left and right, tinny cornets punctuating the rhythm, until it keeps growing, until one realizes.. is he serious? He has to be serious. But it's ironic, how can he be serious? But he is serious.
Jim O'Rourke is often chided because of his apparent lack of compassion for the human race. It just turns out, in my evaluation that he is sick of the fake layers of personal communication that pollute the brainwaves and stop personal growth. He sings in Ghostship in a Storm:
Nothing makes me want to disappear As when someone opens their mouth.... I'm not there like a ghostship in a storm.
Movie on the Way Down slowly transfers the listener to a self-examination.
There's that word again... pride Do you pride yourself on being alive? Do you feel pride when you're alone? Does the mirror say, good day today? Does your family make you feel pride? Do their pictures keep you warm? Is your smile so easily worn? Worn away. Do you feel proud?
From here, the album twists to Through the Night Softly which builds into a somewhat-similar to the Saturday Night Live band segment, tenor saxophone waxing poetic over oohs and ahhs of the world and a piano slowly punctuating a sentence that never starts. It's all for real, not just being covered up or created for its own aspect. Jim O'Rourke is an artist who truly understands postmodernity, and not the same way the majority of those perceiving it define it. He transcends the concept into being.
Please Patronize our Sponsors is a piano and flute piece with some of the best subtle jazz drumming I've heard. The music is a drip from a tongue, and further deepens the instrumental interludes we've been in for awhile. Mid-way through the song there is this moment of rapt attention, with strings. It feels like a high school graduation or gala, where all your friends are watching you, laughing, drinking and having a good time. There are moments and places where this all makes sense. Where it all clicks together, and we've only got a few moments to grab onto it. And if I can sneak a sentence in here and there, stabbing like a rubber knife, then I've done my part.
Jim O'Rourke next examines Burt Bacharach's Something Big. "Like a grain of sand that wants to be a rolling stone. I want to be the man I'm not and other things I really haven't got and that's a lot." The cover placed in the middle of the album here, fully decorated with female background vocals, in some ways points towards the real meat of the first song. This is the only appearance of a female on the album, and as I will investigate in his next major album, Insignificance O'Rourke has many thoughts about women worth investigating. But the thing with O'Rourke, is you never know whether these are his thoughts, or just thoughts he is having. I understand that very well. I rarely can tell the difference in my own judgments.
Eureka is my favorite song on the album. It comes in quiet, with many progressive sounds, deeply edited by a computer, but still organic. Real. The lyrics are really what get me:
Hello, hello can you hear me? Are your skies clear and sunny down there? Even in this rain, a breath reaches me here. Here, on this phone. A quarter, a dayroom for me. And as things, stay the same I'm quickly running out of change. You're thinking on your feet While you're sitting there on your ass Fresh cream in your sugar No stains of sweat on your back There's no need There's an employee To make up for all of your slack A seed don't make a tree Without a servant that waters the grass. From here we slowly move through synths until the final piece, a short song in the tradition of Cat Stevens' Tea for the Tillerman: I'm going to a place where the women have nothing on But the radio, turned up to ten Too loud for me to think I'm hoping if I blink I don't wake up here.... Dah! Dahdhah! Dah-da-dah! Dah-da-dah! Dah-da-da-duh-dah! One of life's greatest sins is natural when it begins Goodbye mouth canyon You weren't very much to see But I only came to leave... The cover to the album depicts a naked, chubby Japanese man, shoving a stuffed rabbit onto his crotch, painted in colorful and peaceful hues. Inside the album there is a picture of such beauty I hang it above my kitchen sink. A beautiful day, with green grass and a blue sky. In the sky is Bruce Lee's face and arm, in a hand-chop motion, looking serious. On the ground, a naked short-legged man stands, his butt to the artist's lens. Nun-chucks lay on the ground by his feet, and a bicycle overturned in front of him. He's in the middle of a field, looking up to Bruce Lee. This defines the album to me. The artist of the paintings is Mimiyo Tomozawa. I highly recommend this. It is among the very best albums I've heard.
From here we slowly move through synths until the final piece, a short song in the tradition of Cat Stevens' Tea for the Tillerman: I'm going to a place where the women have nothing on But the radio, turned up to ten Too loud for me to think I'm hoping if I blink I don't wake up here.... Dah! Dahdhah! Dah-da-dah! Dah-da-dah! Dah-da-da-duh-dah! One of life's greatest sins is natural when it begins Goodbye mouth canyon You weren't very much to see But I only came to leave... The cover to the album depicts a naked, chubby Japanese man, shoving a stuffed rabbit onto his crotch, painted in colorful and peaceful hues. Inside the album there is a picture of such beauty I hang it above my kitchen sink. A beautiful day, with green grass and a blue sky. In the sky is Bruce Lee's face and arm, in a hand-chop motion, looking serious. On the ground, a naked short-legged man stands, his butt to the artist's lens. Nun-chucks lay on the ground by his feet, and a bicycle overturned in front of him. He's in the middle of a field, looking up to Bruce Lee. This defines the album to me. The artist of the paintings is Mimiyo Tomozawa. I highly recommend this. It is among the very best albums I've heard.
From here we slowly move through synths until the final piece, a short song in the tradition of Cat Stevens' Tea for the Tillerman:
I'm going to a place where the women have nothing on But the radio, turned up to ten Too loud for me to think I'm hoping if I blink I don't wake up here.... Dah! Dahdhah! Dah-da-dah! Dah-da-dah! Dah-da-da-duh-dah! One of life's greatest sins is natural when it begins Goodbye mouth canyon You weren't very much to see But I only came to leave...
The cover to the album depicts a naked, chubby Japanese man, shoving a stuffed rabbit onto his crotch, painted in colorful and peaceful hues. Inside the album there is a picture of such beauty I hang it above my kitchen sink. A beautiful day, with green grass and a blue sky. In the sky is Bruce Lee's face and arm, in a hand-chop motion, looking serious. On the ground, a naked short-legged man stands, his butt to the artist's lens. Nun-chucks lay on the ground by his feet, and a bicycle overturned in front of him. He's in the middle of a field, looking up to Bruce Lee. This defines the album to me. The artist of the paintings is Mimiyo Tomozawa.
I highly recommend this. It is among the very best albums I've heard.
with its dumpster full of contraband grapefruit from hellholes like texas
rain that evaporates before it hits the ground i'd never seen that before, i'd always wanted to the very coolest of all precipitation exotic and impossible to my virginian eyes and there it was right through the windshield over joshua trees and exposed plutonic massifs like figure 12-a from Introduction to Meteorology
everything moving faster you gave me concrete like the fifteen the ten the five the one oh one the one ten the two the la river rio hondo california aqueduct all american canal you gave me LAX SFO BUR SAC and the blue line metrolink amtrak caltrain bart speed speed speed casual movement like a pot set to boil logistics hubs full of containers red green blue corrugated steel planetary breadboxes labeled with hyundai and super heavy
sigalert taquiera marine layer tremblor number 4 lane botanica jacked up guero cross collateralized mitzah farkakte wind wave interval value added gang related officer involved satay pollo loco in and out multilevel structure seismic retrofit reposado ramp closed for repair p5 interceed for us our blessed virgin queen of angels warrior queen Califa
the sky santa ana jet stream pacific clear the sky filled with golden airplanes The towers golden and the hills golden They don't make the people golden they don't run the the whole fucking state as a volunteer organization this america inside america They don't make *me* golden back east
The story follows the three survivors of a bus hijacking - Makoto, the driver, and two school age passengers, siblings Kozue and Naoki - and their journey to recover from this trauma. After many seemingly directionless scenes, the film becomes a road movie. Makoto buys a bus and drives across Japan with the children and their college student cousin, Akihiko. The cousin provides the only real window into the other three characters, who are all incredibly opaque.
The immediately striking thing about this film is its running time of 3½ hours. This is not like The Seven Samurai, which flies by despite its length. This is a very slow, mesmerising film. Add to this the extremely terse dialogue, and you have a film that is not for everyone. Even the opening bus hijacking, the only real action in the film, is shot in a remarkably restrained manner.
Eureka is shot in black and white, and is full of beautiful long takes. The shot where we see the Akihiko chasing Naoki after he ran off to avoid doing schoolwork is astonishing. This should not be confused with the showy long take masturbation found in some films. Here, you'd hardly notice the lack of edits.
The children remain mute for most of the film, and I fully expected their vocal recovery to be a sickeningly sentimental indicator of their emotional recovery, yet when Kozue began to speak it was so subtle I almost missed it. The only real cheese is the final shot, in which the film fades into color, destroying the dreamlike atmosphere.
If you liked this, you'll probably like the Brazilian film Central Station.
Eu*re"ka (?). [Gr. I have found, perfect indicative of to find.]
The exclamation attributed to Archimedes, who is said to have cried out "Eureka! eureka!" (I have found it! I have found it!), upon suddenly discovering a method of finding out how much the gold of King Hiero's crown had been alloyed. Hence, an expression of triumph concerning a discovery.
© Webster 1913.
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