Side a / Side B

Following last year's acclaimed 'Sleep Like It's Winter' album and a steady supply of releases via his own Steamroom, Jim O'Rourke returns with a rare vinyl outing; a reworking of source material provided by Alessio Natalizia a.k.a. Not Waving. Spread across two longform pieces, O'Rourke channels Popol Vuh on the spiralling, synth-heavy 15 minute A-side, while the flip sounds like highest grade rhythmic Autechre abstractions imaginable. It's by some distance the most crucial, meaningful release on Diagonal in a long while. What started out as a remix project quickly turned into a collaboration-at-a-distance, with Natalizia sending extra parts, pushing O'Rourke to stray as far from the original material as possible. O'Rourke being O'Rourke, the results are nothing short of revelatory. 'Side A' renders a chromatic synth knot into a spiralling, heavenly superstructure worthy of comparison to Popol Vuh, slowly emerging from barely-there pulsing embers to a full-on psychedelic shimmer that in turn recalls Keith Fullerton Whitman, Klaus Schulze and Craig Leon, ever-evolving, restless, meditative, agitated. 'Side B' envelopes listeners in a hyper-baroque rave hall of mirrors - all iridescent arps and irregular, automated pulses that refract palatial imaginary spaces. It's what we imagine O'Rourke and Autechre collaborating might sound like. And if that doesn't get you in a tizz, this one's probably not for you. Brilliant.