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Rating: It has been a difficult year. Everything somehow started last September, when my father suffered a heart attack. I already had some unresolved issues with myself, and my relationship with him had been particularly tense lately. So, we had a particularly violent clash. Unfortunately, these things happen. I mean, the truth is that it is damn hard to talk to people, and as absurd as it may seem, it is this damn hard even if the person you're trying to talk to is someone who should know you better than anyone else, someone who has known you since the moment you were born.
We had this clash. And the next day he got sick and had a heart attack. It was a difficult time, let's say he had a close call, but fortunately, he recovered. I mean, he's okay now. Sure, he is still recovering from the heart attack and will have to take medication for life, undergo periodic check-ups, and maybe adjust his life in general - something he hasn't and will never do, but you can't suddenly change a person after a whole life... - but in essence, he doesn’t seem to have significant cardiac issues. As for me, however, I never managed to get out of this situation. Let me explain. It's as if something broke permanently. From that moment on, every time I tried to lift my head, there was immediately something that knocked me down again. It's like I'm perpetually playing a game of Snakes and Ladders: every time I have to start over from the 'Start'.
Trying to make sense of it, to understand something of all this and what mental mechanism has triggered, I’m also trying to talk about this album. It is a collaboration, but not the first ever between the versatile and tireless Tokyo-based multi-instrumentalist, Jim O'Rourke, and the Austrian guitarist and musician, Christian Fennesz. The two have collaborated together several times and steadily until 1999 in a project with British electronic musician Peter Rehberg. But it must be said that this latest work is something different from what they had previously proposed.
Recorded between Kobe, Kyoto, and Tokyo last September, 'It's Hard For Me To Say I'm Sorry' (Editions Mego) consists of two long sessions of crystalline and shimmering, crystal-like sonic compositions. But this time more than before, I believe that delving into technical specifics makes little sense. All that matters regarding this album is what this sonic experience conveys to the listener in terms of emotions and feelings.
Here I am feeling as if I am finally close to grasping a point of balance within my entire existence. I have a dream. I am in Canada, and my best friend and I have opened our own pub in a small suburban town. I don't like the cold and hate winter, but all of this, at this very moment, doesn't matter. All around me, there is only snow covering the roofs of the small houses lining the main street of the town. I drive my car at a moderate speed while the sun reflects on the lake's surface. I watch the landscape passing through the window and listen to what can be defined as the silence of noise and inhale the scent of the cold morning dew. I take a cigarette, light it, and begin to smoke slowly, inhaling deeply and exhaling clouds of smoke of all colors that slowly start to slip through the open window space. I feel calm. I can feel the moment. I smile.
How many times have I said I'm sorry throughout my whole life? Really. I think I say, 'I'm sorry,' hundreds of times a day to different people and for every possible reason. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I'm really sorry. But the real reason I repeat it so many times is probably just because it's easier this way. It's easier to say I'm sorry if I repeat it more often. But it's not fair this way. It's all a scam, a farce, a complete illusion. I'm fooling myself.
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