(2021) Jack O'Rourke - Wild Place  


Review:
Cork singer and songwriter Jack O’Rourke has always stood out from his contemporaries. His instrument of choice is piano, and because of this you can forget about comparisons to the likes of Glen Hansard, Damien Rice and all the rest of the guitar-swinging troubadours. Instead, think of O’Rourke along the lines of Tom Waits and Randy Newman, although without slurred lyrics and dog-rough vocals. More in line with O’Rourke’s aesthetic is someone like John Grant, albeit more entrenched in the balladeer mode. If that’s your thing, then Wild Place will not disappoint. In truth, there isn’t one song here that you’d throw out of bed in the morning. Not only is O’Rourke’s classic balladeer style wholly persuasive, but across 11 songs are strings (cello, viola, violin) that even if you weren’t fully seduced, you’d still have a hankering to get with the programme. Melodies are in abundance, with O’Rourke effortlessly spinning out tune after tune with no fear of them running out. The man is also a gifted lyricist. In ‘Coffee Song’ he sings: “she’s worked here since the ‘80s when pumpkin lattes were a myth. She flunked all of her college dreams for punk rock schemes, playing bass for Patti Smith…” O’Rourke is able to succinctly express and/or mix fact and fiction. The result, not to put too fine a point on it, is chamber-pop class through and through.





Track Listing:
1.The Parting 03:49
2.Patsy Cline 03:41
3.Sea Swimming 04:42
4.Bloom like Orchids 05:59
5.High C 04:33
6.Strange Bird 04:48
7.Runaway Train 03:12
8.Opera On The Top Floor 03:42
9.Coffee Song 04:23
10.Amy 03:43
11.Ithaca 03:04
12.Timshel 02:27


Media Report:
Genre: chamber pop, folk
Country: Ireland
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits