Album Review: Jim O'Rourke - Simple Songs

Until I started listening to Simple Songs, I only knew of Jim O’Rourke by name—as the producer behind Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and as an auxiliary member of Sonic Youth for a few years. I guess I also because of the grotesque cover art to his 1999 effort Eureka. Known for his experimental and avant-garde work, his Wikipedia entries say he releases his more “conventional” efforts via Drag City.

So that’s all I know about him. And I’ve never listened to Eureka, or any of these experimental works he’s known for. And if you were to just play me Simple Songs, and if I were to have no prior knowledge, I would say that Jim O’Rourke is just a dude that really likes Cat Stevens.

The title itself, Simple Songs, seems like a bit of an in-joke, because yes, in comparison to the recently released collaborative effort with Oren Ambarchi—yes, these songs seem very simple in comparison. They’re pop songs, not 42 minutes of free improv and guitar feedback.

But in that simplicity, the kind that makes up pop music, there’s also a complexity. And that comes from O’Rourke’s seeming knowledge and understanding of that all-too-often imitated very warm, 1970s, AM radio sound—something that numerous records in 2014 tried to achieve both with the songwriting style and with the production value (Beck and Jenny Lewis both tried, and failed.)

Here, on Simple Songs, however, it’s anything but derivative. These are well orchestrated—at times, sprawling in their arrangements—and meticulous sounding in their production.

Outside of just how well made these eight songs are, they are also incredibly accessible—which is really funny coming from Jim O’Rourke; but also, outside of being accessible, they’re just flat out good, and catchy—with a heavy emphasis on enduring melodies and hooks: right out of the gate with the…for lack of a better descriptor…”adult contemporary snarl” on the verses of “Friends With Benefits,” to the twinkling piano interludes of “That Weekend,” to the near Steely Dan slither of “Half Life Crisis,” and then into the huge moments of “Hotel Blue.”

And well shit, that’s just the first side of the album.

O’Rouke doesn’t so much play his hand early on Simple Songs, but the most accessible and the most catchy material is stacked right at the beginning. The latter half, specifically “These Hands” and the closing opus “All Your Love,” focuses more on the precision playing and fantastic instrumentation on the band that O’Rouke assembled for Simple Songs.

Usually an album that tries this hard to sound like something from 40 years ago would be something I would write off as “cool dad rock,” but in this case, O’Rourke’s charm and sincerity make it a worthwhile, interesting, and most importantly, a fun listen.

Simple Songs is out now via Drag City