Jim O'Rourke - Hands That Bind (Drag City)

Jim O’Rourke’s eerily captivating motion picture soundtrack for Hands That Bind is a vital addition to his Drag City catalogue

I haven’t seen Kyle Armstrong’s Canadian prairie gothic, Hands That Bind, although Jim O’Rourke’s mesmeric score makes me want to (as does the idea of Will Oldham as a bartender). On the other hand, the realisation soon struck me that I wouldn’t need to watch it in order to deeply appreciate this music. These sounds – organic, eerily captivating, like masks slipping away – were crafted to support a visual narrative, but deserve a second life on their own. It was a good thing Drag City thought so too.

Here O’Rourke harnesses, draws out and sustains mood, teasing abstract forms into approximations of difficult to grasp feelings. Unlike many composers in the world of film, he doesn’t tell you how to feel, but instead excavates emotions to examine out in the open. The version of the film playing in the imagination machine of my mind – O’Rourke running the metaphorical projector – resembles The Straight Story by way of Under the Skin. There is however the pervading sense of staying in one place; I can’t help but communicate with the stillness of it. Found sounds, disembodied piano and electro-acoustic creep ingratiate themselves like cold breath on glass.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Jim O’Rourke again recently and no matter how familiar with his sound world you become, you can never completely settle into it. He keeps it discomfiting. Every shift in room tone (on a piece such as Shutting Down Here) or grand pop rock gesture (think Insignificance and his nods to early 70s McCartney) is like coming home to where the heart slowly wastes away. Hands That Bind lives up to that premise as a place to die happy in.

Drag City

Jim O’Rourke Drag City Bandcamp