Fire! with Jim O'Rourke – Unreleased – Rune Grammofon – RCD2111 - ***

Having wet-nursed the experimental ambitions of upwardly mobile rock bands, such as Wilco and Sonic Youth, Chicago's irrepressible musical explorer Jim O'Rourke split to Japan in 2006 to rediscover the personal voice he'd subsumed somewhat into star names' signature sounds. The Swedish free jazz saxophonist Mats Gustafson's Fire! trio came to Tokyo and invited him to plug in his guitar. Low bellyache blowing, Goth rock electric bass throb, and unexpectedly martial Zeppelin style drum thwacks menace throughout, while O'Rourke terraforms plateaus of feedback into the inhospitable terrain of four improvisations. A closing seventeen minute blow-out is equal parts ecstatic jazz and nihilist noise.

(7/8/11)