Some Recordings
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Discography, including MP3 sample tracks
CD Reviews
Why I play drums standing up
Brief Biography
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Symphonic Gong Solo 2009/07/12 (13.4 MB)
Recorded 12 July, 2009, live at Freds, Wellington, New Zealand. Simon O'Rorke - Paiste 32" symphonic gong.
19 December 2006, Piece 1 (17.5 MB)
Recorded 19 December 2006, Wellington, New Zealand. Peter Daly -
viola; Bernard Wells - bass recorder; Simon O'Rorke -
percussion.
19 December 2006, Piece 2 (10.7 MB)
Recorded 19 December 2006, Wellington, New Zealand. Peter Daly -
viola; Bernard Wells - bass recorder; Simon O'Rorke -
percussion.
19 December 2006, Piece 3 (7.1 MB)
Recorded 19 December 2006, Wellington, New Zealand. Peter Daly -
viola; Bernard Wells - bass recorder; Simon O'Rorke -
percussion.
Simon O'Rorke and Chris Prosser at Fred's, 30th May 2010
Click here to read the reviews of these CDs
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Spectra by Glory Fckn Sun (Tipped Bowler Tapes), 2008
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This is an actual LP, in red vinyl no less! More from "ecstatic psyche-noise trio" Glory Fckn Sun. Recorded in 2005 (I think), Wellington, New Zealand. Antony Milton - guitar/electronics, Ben Spiers - guitar/violin/electronics, Simon O'Rorke - gongs/percussion. For a sample track and reviews, please refer to Glory Fckn Sun's MySpace page. For further information and to order, please refer to either of the Tipped Bowler Tapes or Pseudo Arcana web sites.
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Vision Scorched by Glory Fckn Sun (Pseudo Arcana, PACD109), 2007
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Recorded 2005, Wellington, New Zealand. Antony Milton - guitar/electronics, Ben Spiers - guitar/violin/electronics, Simon O'Rorke - gongs/percussion. Antony Milton describes Glory Fckn Sun as an "ecstatic psyche-noise trio". For a sample track, please refer to Glory Fckn Sun's MySpace page. For further information and to order, please refer to the Pseudo Arcana web site.
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| Preview of the forthcoming CD Pattern Recognition by Peel |
Sample track: Smash and Grab (0.6 MB) Recorded 22 May 2005, Wellington, New Zealand. Octif (Shanan Holm) - computer; Simon O'Rorke - percussion.
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| Preview of the forthcoming CD Clangophonica by Clangophone |
Sample track: Temperature Gate (3.3 MB) Recorded 13 March 2005, Wellington, New Zealand. Alphabethead (David Morrison) - turntable; Simon O'Rorke - percussion.
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Squeakspeak by The Slab (Space CDs, SPACECD101), 2001
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Sample tracks: Squeakspeak (2.0 MB) Slide (1.9 MB) Recorded 6th December 2001, Wellington, New Zealand. Anton Wuts - tenor saxophone; Daniel Beban - electric guitar; Simon O'Rorke - percussion. On the track Squeakspeak, Beban also plays balloon and O'Rorke also plays utters (a set of rubber tubes tipped with brass apertures to make them squeak when waggled or squeezed).
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Live at The Space by The Slab (Space CDs, SPACECD003), 2001
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Sample track: The Light of Ancient Mistakes (excerpt) (1.9 MB) Recorded 26th October 2000, live at The Space, Wellington, New Zealand, in the Wellington International Jazz Festival. Anton Wuts - tenor saxophone; Daniel Beban - electric guitar; Simon O'Rorke - percussion.
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The Slab by The Slab (Elephant Records, ELECD03), 1998 |
Sample track: The third one of 18th July, 1997 (2.9 MB) As the title suggests, recorded 18th July 1997, Wellington, New Zealand. Brian Hutson - baritone saxophone; Matthew Mitchell - electric guitar; Simon O'Rorke - percussion. |
(Sleevenotes of Squeakspeak)
People often ask me why I play drums standing up. Well, it's because I'm a percussionist, not a drummer! I switched to percussion after playing bass guitar for about twenty years. I thought it might be hard for me to learn the four-limbed co-ordination required for a drum kit. And because I am a free improviser, I thought I did not need to.
Drum kits evolved originally for military music and then for genres such as swing and rock: what these types of music all have in common is a requirement for the drummer to be a time-keeper, maintaining a (more or less) steady beat of one kind or another. The four limbs come in handy for this, with the foot-pedalled bass drum being frequently called on to punctuate bar lines and the like.
With free improv, in contrast, drums are optional. Where there is a drummer or percussionist in a freely improvising ensemble, his role is really much the same as that of any other musician: to listen to the other players and respond to them with lines that differ from but fit in with what they are playing. Free improvisers play with an implied "pulse" rather than with a laid-down beat, so the drummer's time-keeping function is not only not required but in general is to be avoided. I can construct the contrapuntal lines I generally use quite well enough, to my satisfaction at least, with a mere two limbs. Indeed I particularly like the way it makes it easier to avoid clutter. Finding spaces, i.e. silences, to play in, and leaving spaces for others are key, though by no means invariant, techniques of free improvisation. If you were to hear just my two-handed percussion tracks from this recording played back in isolation from Anton's sax and Dan's guitar, it might sound sparse. But as this CD of course reproduces what all three of us played, you will probably find that it sounds plenty busy enough (allowing for the fact that on some pieces we are actually playing deliberately sparsely).
Of course I have played conventional drum kits. And actually I find it quite easy after all. So maybe one day I'll augment my equipment with a stool, a kick drum and high-hats, the additions I would need to assemble a "proper" drum kit. I don't know though. As you can hear on Squeakspeak, I already have an 18" x 16" (45cm x 40cm) floor tom, which is as big as some kick drums. And I can think of plenty of potential additional toys (things to play with) that appeal to me more.
Because what I like most about playing standing up is that it frees me to move around and reach more percussion instruments. What I lose (and don't really need) in fullness of sound through not playing with my feet I make up for with the mobility that helps me maximise the range of timbres ("colours"/"textures" etc.) that I can contribute to a performance.
Left to right: Matthew Mitchell, Simon O'Rorke, Brian Hutson
Simon O'Rorke (b. Portsmouth, England 1955).
Simon O'Rorke started playing bass guitar when he was seventeen. He first got exposed to free improvisation when he was a student in London in the 70s. At that time he wanted to be a jazz-funk musician. He attended workshops in free improvisation run by John Stevens and Trevor Watts in London in the late seventies. But it took years for him to realise that free improvisation was his favourite music and what he could play well. Improvising with guitarist Andy Hammond (later of Conspiracy) in the mid-80s was a revelation that clarified this for him.
But when O'Rorke moved from Britain to Auckland, New Zealand in 1989, there appeared to be no interest there in the American free jazz and European improvised music that had inspired him. He met saxophonist Brian Hutson in 1992, the year he moved to Wellington. O'Rorke and Hutson determined to form an improvised music ensemble. For the next five years they struggled to find suitable collaborators and performance venues. They tried various line-ups, using the ensemble name The Slab from 1995. The turning point came in 1997. Around that time there began a revival in interest in improvised music, and O'Rorke and Hutson were pleased to be able to work with Matthew Mitchell, one of New Zealand's leading jazz guitarists. The CD The Slab (1998) was the result.
O'Rorke got fed up trying to attract a drummer competent at and committed to playing improvised music. Just a few months before Hutson and he started their collaboration with Matthew Mitchell, O'Rorke decided he could do better himself and started playing percussion in earnest. He has since given up playing bass guitar completely, for health reasons.
Brian Hutson moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1998 and Matthew Mitchell moved to London, England in 1999. But the Wellington free improv scene, which from 1992 to 1995 consisted more or less only of Simon O'Rorke and Brian Hutson, has taken off. There is now a pool of at least twenty musicians. With the establishment of a specialist venue, The Space ("New Zealand's home of improvised music") in 1998, it has been much easier to play improvised music here. (The Space recently moved to more salubrious premises and was renamed Happy). O'Rorke has been able to work with most of the talented musicians who have emerged on the Wellington improv scene, using the ensemble name The Slab for his main line-ups. His regular collaborators in The Slab have included guitarist Daniel Beban, since 1998, and saxophonist Anton Wuts, since 1999. They are both featured on The Slab's CDs Live at The Space (2001) and Squeakspeak (2001).
Simon O'Rorke has also performed in California: in San Francisco in 2001 and 2003 and at the Big Sur Experimental Music Festival in 2003. His collaborators in California have included Ernesto Diaz-Infante, Bob Marsh, John Shiurba and Brian Eubanks.
O'Rorke has recently been playing with turntablist Alphabethead (David Morrison) in the duo Clangophone and with laptopist Octif (Shanan Holm) in the duo Peel (PErcussion vs ELectronics). CDs by both duos will be released shortly: Clangophonica by Clangophone and Pattern Recognition by Peel.
You can email Simon O'Rorke at
Photo Credits
Photos of Simon O'Rorke by Brian Latimer. Photo of Mitchell, O'Rorke and Hutson by Pam Hutson.