Drag City

Over the last five or so years, indie rock experimentalist Jim O’Rourke has been engulfed in a molten ocean of electric guitar apocalyptica working in collaboration with avant-noise guitar great Oren Ambarchi and Japanese drone giant Keiji Haino. Its been a wild ride for those who’ve chosen to embark on this path of pure, indoctrinated feedback meltdowns. But the light at the end of the tunnel for longtime fans is officially upon us with the release of Simple Songs, O’Rourke’s first Drag City album in six years and his most pop-oriented set since Insignificance. As a matter of fact, there is nothing in his catalog quite like it: pure AM gold in the vein of Runt -era Todd and Cat Stevens’ Buddha and the Chocolate Box done with pure, unadulterated love for the craft of making strong, melodic songs. Every cut on here is a winner, but specifically you listen to the likes of “That Weekend” and “End of the Road” and understand that Jim is not only a master of deconstructing music but reveling it in its purest, most melodic form all the same. Simple Songs, simply put, is Jim O’Rourke’s crowning achievement in a solid quarter century full of them. This is the type of stuff that gets people in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame right here.