Guitarist-composer and avant-rock provocateur Jim O’Rourke is notorious for his collaborations with Faust, drone pioneer Tony Conrad and the late guitarist John Fahey, and infamous in the mainstream for his noise-and-pathos mix of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. But O’Rourke’s new truly solo album — he played, produced and engineered every note — is one long confession of his true rapture for melody and instrumental detail. The Visitor (Drag City) is a continuous 38-minute piece that winds through buoyant tangles of acoustic guitar, piano and percussion; gorgeous spells of rippling suspended chords; and, halfway in, a cocky, eccentric Americana of banjo, reeds, swooping pedal steel guitar and marching drums, as if Charles Ives had rolled into an instrumental session for the Beach Boys‘ Pet Sounds. There are no track breaks here, just sparkling sustained delight.
Article Source: Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily