Jim O'Rourke - Insignificance The phrase "experimental pop" doesn't make a whole lot of intuitive sense. I mean, pop music is supposed to be normal and familiar and immediately likable. In fact, I know plenty of folks who will turn their noses up at anything labelled "pop" for just those reasons: they apparently want to be forced to work or at least wait a while before they like something (or maybe they're afraid of other people inadvertently liking it too.) Incontrovertibly though, the genre (if it can be called that) has changed quite a bit over the last few decades, which means that someone must have been experimenting somewhere along the way. And indeed, most of my favorite artists - Elvis Costello, Beck, Stevie Wonder, even the Beatles - could be neatly described as pop experimenters. Jim O'Rourke's new record kicks off with a bright snare rat-tat-tat and a cheery rip of chiming guitar, leading into the rollicking "All Downhill From Here," which (despite its bitter lyrics) suggests nothing so much as the simplistic joyful abandon of the days when rock and rollers had no fear of pop. And yet a glance at a daunting list of projects that the veteran musician and producer has been involved in - with indie luminaries like Sonic Youth, Stereolab, Superchunk, Faust, and Tortoise - confirms that he's had his hand in more than a handful of experiments in his time, in the process earning a name for himself as experimenter non pareil, especially among Chicago's cutting-edge cognoscenti. What makes Insignificance so surprising, atypical, and ultimately beautiful (and no, I won't stoop to punning on the title) is the subtle way in which that experimental edge comes through on an album of what are essentially pop songs. If one of the trademark deficiencies of pop music is its lack of variety (and even if "experimental music" is often similarly derided for being monolithically same-sounding in the face of its inaccessability), O'Rourke neatly avoids that problem. The seven songs here veer widely from the lilting vibes-and-piano waltz of the title track (which strongly recalls another of O'Rourke's collaborators, the High Llamas) to the stomping, chunky guitar rock of "Therefore, I Am." And then there's the ingenious closer, "Life Goes Off," whose lyrics politely detail the accoutrements of some rather questionable goings-on ("You used to be quite content with your shower cap/I guess know I now you feel more at home/with a case of handi-wrap" "I'd think that you would try to find something to do/with my old school tie/that doesn't turn my skin blue") and pause to muse: "If I were to die with these things on, you might want to try another size." If you weren't listening closely though, the gorgeous acoustic guitar work and the catchy, gently unusual chorus melody might make you mistake it for just another old pretty love ballad. And a final curve-ball comes the last two minutes, as drum-rolls and high-pitched hums subsume the song and lurch ahead into a strutting, epic crescendo of joyful noise. A top-notch group of players, including members of Wilco and Essex Green and saxist Ken Vandemark, wonderfully execute O'Rourke's arrangements, which, though they start simply enough, contain enough layers of complexity to ensure that the album is always a pleasure to listen to. It's worth noting that though this album is only a scant seven tunes long, it reaches a fairly respectable 38 minutes, meaning that the songs average about five and a half minutes. Which is saying something considering that most of them call to mind tunes I could imagine someone disparaging as "three-minute pop songs." Jim and crew take those extra two and a half minutes to create something truly meaningful - perhaps the highest compliment I could pay them would be to say that these songs are all "fully realized." To be honest, I can't quite say what it is - clever arranging, tasteful musicianship, or just plain songcraft - that makes listening to this album such an enjoyable, rewarding experience. What O'Rourke seems to be after here is gently nudging the pop song in new directions, while allowing all of its best qualities to shine in their full glory. So I guess that's it.