It’s been a great pleasure to meet with Jack O’Rourke over the past few years and in that time we’ve spoken about his process and his inspirations for each album or project. He’s a thoughtfully and considered songwriter and his albums display that to great effect.
When we last spoke, earlier this year, he was planning to make the best of the the circumstances that applied. He had booked the Triskel Arts Centre in Cork, a beautiful and vibrant live space, and recorded the basic tracks on the piano there, making the acoustics part of the recording. Further work was completed with his collaborators after theses recordings, but, unless you were listening really carefully, you would not know that it was recorded that way, such is the sense of live playing.
“Wild Place” flows very beautifully, the lyrics are rich and complemented by subtle and sympathetic accompaniment and production and it will stay with you. It’s a fine collection of songs.
We caught up as the album was about to be officially released and spoke about how it came about, but, as you’ll hear, we wandered about a bit in our conversation: pleasantly, it has to be said.