Terminal Pharmacy

With Terminal Pharmacy, Jim O'Rourke creates a soundscape so calm and minimal that some people, lacking patience for the seeming formlessness, could do entirely without it, while others will find themselves repeatedly putting it in their CD player at home, work, or wherever they need warmth dispersed throughout the air. Seeping steadily from the edge of silence comes crackles, thin fuzz, and extended string tones. Less narrative than what "electro-acoustic" usually refers to, "Cede" hums at the back of your mind. Given almost a minute of silence in between, the second piece then begins; sounding like a very quiet improvisation, the instruments whisper bowed rounds, a conversation in tininess that grows bolder at moments.