O’Rourke spent the 1990s becoming a mainstay of the Chicago music scene with a strong presence in both Europe and Japan. And yet the crown jewel of his career might be these seven tracks of avant-garde classic rock, brimming with color and dynamism, seasoned with scathing wit. This is a guy who was involved in some of the most classic records by Wilco, Joanna Newsom, and Smog, who has collaborated with icons from Fahey to Faust to Fennesz, who spearheaded Sonic Youth’s 21st century renaissance, who has helped to shape the face of experimental music for more than three decades. If you haven’t, I want to reach through your screen right now and get this music in your ears. This much hyperbole would surely gross out the relentlessly sardonic O’Rourke, but Insignificance merits it. It’s just the sickest shit imaginable, the kind of song that will turn you into a fan for life in under five minutes. Those swinging, bashed-out drums a tangle of live-wire electric guitar that splays and spirals like Medusa whipping her hair the grace with which this pop-rock banger morphs into translucent acoustic chamber-pop and back the euphoric falsetto “Woo, woo!” that launches the music into a sonic fireworks display the brass section that shows up for the grand finale just because. “I may be insincere,” O’Rourke continues, “But it’s all downhill from here.” Considering the timeless brilliance of the album that unfolds from there, that last line might be the least sincere of all - except in the sense that “All Downhill From Here” is one of those openers so spectacular that it sets an impossible bar for the rest of the tracklist, the way a rollercoaster never climbs higher than at the top of its first hill.
“Not that you would anyway.” The Chicago producer, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter extraordinaire is telling us a lot with the first sentences he utters on Insignificance, released 20 years ago today. “Don’t believe a word I say,” Jim O’Rourke dryly intones.