Mirror (Andrew Chalk & Christoph Heemann) with Jim O’Rourke

Lampo brings Chalk and Heemann to Chicago for their local debut and only their second appearance together in the U.S. In two concerts, joined by Jim O’Rourke, they present different works each night—detailed, ethereal drone music with guitar, organ and prerecorded sound material.

Andrew Chalk (U.K.) has been active since 1985 as Ferial Confine and is perhaps best known for his collaborative work with Organum and as co-founder of Ora (with Darren Tate, Jonathan Coleclough, Colin Potter, Daisuke Suzuki and Lol Coxhill). Some of Chalk’s early solo material has recently been collected on the superb Crescent (Robot Records).

In 1983, the teenaged Christoph Heemann (b.1964, Aachen, Germany) co-founded tape music group H.N.A.S. (Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa, translated as Moose Without a Sofa), which combined the legacies of 70s Krautrock with collage/musique concrète and noise techniques. Since then Heemann has worked on various solo projects and partnered with Merzbow, Edward Ka-Spel of the Legendary Pink Dots and David Jackman of Organum. In 1991 Heemann began a long-term collaboration with Jim O’Rourke.

Jim O’Rourke (b.1969, Chicago, Ill.) encountered the music of Derek Bailey as youngster and began visiting him in London at the age of 13. Eyes opened to the power of improvisational guitar, he released several of his own highly experimental works and has worked closely with John Fahey and Loren Mazzacane Connors. In 1993, O’Rourke co-founded the experimental rock group Gastr del Sol with David Grubbs. In the same year, he formed the avant-rock group Brise-Glace with Darin Gray and Dylan Posa. Throughout the 1990s, O’Rourke was a member of the band Illusion of Safety. His work with Takehisa Kosugi, music director of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, as well as Tony Conrad, Arnold Dreyblatt, Christian Wolff and others built bridges between contemporary and popular music. O’Rourke’s solo albums include Terminal Pharmacy (1995), Bad Timing (1997), and Eureka (1999). Since 1999 he has performed and recorded as a member of Sonic Youth, playing bass, guitar and synthesizer as well as recording and mixing the band.

Jim O’Rourke has appeared twice before in the Lampo series. In March 2000, he performed with Takehisa Kosugi at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. He played with Martin Tétreault and Kevin Drumm at the Empty Bottle in September 1999.