Jim O'Rourke
Eureka

It's very cold outside, day by day the temperature is dropping, and now even the last leaves clinging with all their might to the trees are giving in to the inevitable icy wind blowing straight down from Siberia. I need something to warm my heart. Not long ago, I moved from Latina to Ferrara, and after the inevitable initial material concerns, with the arrival of the cold northeast winter, I start to miss the Pontine places which, although ugly, were so familiar to me. I begin to miss my friends. Those who, even if you had nothing to say, it didn't matter. I'm looking for music to cradle my melancholy. After all, it's Saturday night, and I have no one to go out with. I simply had dinner with 4 sausages and two Fiests. I'm looking for music that can make my wardrobe with arabesques seem for a moment a white haven to retreat to.

I know it has sometimes been accused of intellectualism for its own sake (in some cases rightly so), but the album that gives me the most comfort tonight is "Eureka" by Jim O'Rourke.

Jim O'Rourke is best known as the producer of Sonic Youth (of which he was also the fifth official member for a period), Stereolab, Faust, Wilco, and for working as a music consultant for the film "School of Rock" with Jack Black. But in his personal history, in addition to working with Gastr del Sol and Loose Fur, he has ventured into several solo albums. "Eureka" is an album from 1999 released by Drag City. It's an album so soft at certain moments that the sensation of being inside a giant cotton candy best describes it. Just as its melancholy in others is comparable to the feeling of walking alone in a city where you don't know anyone and from which you cannot escape, that stunned sense of solitude. The tempos are often stretched, and even though one might expect an explosion in various situations of the album, it never happens.

The album's best moment is probably in the long, opening suite "Prelude to 110 or 220/Women of the World" and in the second piece "Ghost Ship in a Storm," later remixed by Zero 7. But the entire album amazes for never exceeding the limit of redundancy or superfluity. Although aware of being misunderstood, "Eureka" is a minimal album. It's truly that last remaining leaf hanging on. It's truly the detached step of a lonely and cold man in a new city. It's not a masterpiece, but I don't believe that an attentive listener could get tired of it, and surely even for those who are less attentive, the successful cover of Burt Bacharach's "Something Big," the instrumental gem "Please Patronize Our Sponsors," and of course the sweet urban lullaby "Movie on the Way Down" won't be unpleasant.

1. Prelude to 110 or 220/Women of the World
2. Ghost Ship in a Storm
3. Movie on the Way Down
4. Through the Night Softly
5. Please Patronize Our Sponsors
6. Something Big
7. Eureka
8. Happy Holidays