‘Do you want to do this in English or Japanese?’ Jim O'Rourke asks as we sit down in an old-school coffee shop in Shinjuku. It's been five years since the multi-instrumentalist – a veteran of the Chicago and New York improv scenes, not to mention a Grammy-winning producer (for Wilco's 2004 album A Ghost is Born) and former member of Sonic Youth – moved to Tokyo, and he confesses that he now spends more time speaking the local brogue than his native tongue.
‘I always liked Japan more than any other country,’ he admits, estimating that he'd visited the country something like 50 times before finally moving here. Since arriving, he's kept himself busy as a producer for hire, while working on his own solo material (most recently the 2009 album The Visitor) and maintaining a regular presence on the local live scene. You might catch him playing with avant-garde icons such as Keiji Haino and Merzbow, sitting in with visiting jazz musicians including The Thing, or performing in his regular band with keyboardist Eiko Ishibashi, bassist Toshiaki Sudoh and drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto. Last year, he was also lined up to curate the second day of Tokyo's I'll Be Your Mirror festival, only for the event to be ignominiously pulled at the last minute due to poor ticket sales (more on that later).
Notoriously media-shy, O'Rourke has broken cover today to talk about a series of concerts that he'll be playing at SuperDeluxe later this month. Over the course of six days, he'll revisit material from various points in his career, including college compositions and two of his best-loved solo albums (the instrumental Happy Days and Bad Timing), as well as treating audiences to the premieres of some new (and not-so-new) pieces. And, he admits, most of it isn't anywhere near ready yet. His hangover probably isn't helping, either – the result of sinking an entire bottle of a saké called Taxi Driver the night before. ‘I woke up this morning and felt like Travis Bickle,’ he says. ‘It was pretty strong.’