Visitor

Recording information: Steamroom, Tokyo.Photographer: Masayuki Shioda.Given the sheer experimentalism of his past recordings, whether in pop or experimental music, Jim O'Rourke is an enigmatic guitarist, producer, engineer, and composer, but he's not one who can be placed into a box. Throughout his own career as a solo artist -- even across his previous four albums on Drag City that go back a decade -- he's never repeated himself, nor has he sold his ambition short. The Visitor is a single 38-minute piece of instrumental music recorded with conventional instruments -- acoustic, electric, and pedal steel guitars; piano; clarinet; banjo; organ; cello; harmonica; drums; etc. By O'Rourke's count, it took over 200 recorded parts to create it. He exhorts listeners to "listen on speakers, loud." There's a reason for this. Its meticulous sound design and sense of space and sonic placement are paramount. It's very physical music, and therefore a physical space is required -- not the inner one o