A solid release from the Jim O'Rourke archives circa 1990, this is nevertheless a somewhat odd choice for issuance. While featured the piece is quite lovely and yet at the same time teeters on the edge of becoming a full blown Tony Conrad-like exercise in hard minimalism, it also has enough roughness and under-blown naivety to make it something I would expect O'Rourke to not quite take seriously enough to release. Always one to try for the unexpected, though, it's no true surprise coming from him. The live version on this disc is actually worthwhile, too, because the sound quality is much improved and the direction of the piece is somewhat different than on the original. While it doesn't have all the charm of the older piece, it's probably the preferable track here.
The Headz packaging is particularly exquisite on this, featuring a beautiful photo by Mike Watt, altered for the back cover so that the three orientations shown are possible when holding the object.
Hopefully the 4LP box of early material on Christoph Heemann's Dom label sees the light of day soon, as that will probably be light years ahead of even this very strong material.
