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Jim O'Rourke

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The Endless Potential Of The Pedal Steel Guitar, An Odd Duck By Any Measure

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Music Features

The Endless Potential Of The Pedal Steel Guitar, An Odd Duck By Any Measure

January 7, 2020 • The pedal steel guitar is, for many, inextricable from its roots in country music — but its well runs much deeper than providing some smooth twang.

Viking's Choice: Cracked Music From The Nurse With Wound List, Hypercolor Rave, More

Be it prog-rock, free jazz, musique concrète, Krautrock, deranged punk or psych-rock, the experimental music found on the Nurse With Wound List from 1979 could split open a third eye. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Courtesy of the artist

All Songs Considered

Viking's Choice: Cracked Music From The Nurse With Wound List, Hypercolor Rave, More

September 17, 2019 • Nurse With Wound's influential list of 291 experimental artists finally gets the compilation treatment, plus a toxic banger from noise-rock trio Buildings and rhapsodic rave music by Octo Octa.

Viking's Choice: Appalachian Juggalo Blues, Psychedelic Black Metal, More

Frank Hurricane sings the "full spectrum of juggalo" on the extremely charming "Susquehanna River Blues." Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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All Songs Considered

Viking's Choice: Appalachian Juggalo Blues, Psychedelic Black Metal, More

June 25, 2019 • Frank Hurricane pens an ode to lonely juggalos everywhere, Skáphe + Wormlust collapses a black hole with black metal and Lea Bertucci takes her sax to a grain elevator.

Jim O'Rourke's new album, Simple Songs, comes out May 19. Kahimi Karie/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Kahimi Karie/Courtesy of the artist

Review

First Listen

Review: Jim O'Rourke, 'Simple Songs'

May 10, 2015 • The musician and producer has seemed to make a game of setting out challenges that can be solved, bested and subverted in surprising ways.

Viking's Choice: Metal And Outer Sound In 2009

Artwork from Baroness' Blue Record. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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All Songs Considered

Viking's Choice: Metal And Outer Sound In 2009

December 28, 2009 • As has become customary in the past few years, NPR Music producer Lars Gotrich's near-OCD list-making habit revealed a certain strain of outer sound that pervaded his headphones in 2009.

Viking's Choice: Metal And Outer Sound In 2009

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