A solo album from Australian drummer Jim White? This isn’t one I saw coming, but as Bill Callahan, his longtime friend and collaborator, puts it:
This is long overdue. I mean, looooooonnnnnng overdue. A solo album by Jim.
As one of the world’s greatest drummers, Jim White has delighted, entertained, and challenged over a fascinating, collaborative, cutting-edge career. He makes those intuitive moves look effortless, whether playing with Warren Ellis and Mick Turner in Dirty Three or playing the brushes on Odd Said the Doe with Nina Nastasia. Discogs lists 210 credits against White’s name (I’m sure there are more), starting with the b-side of a 1982 single in a band called The People with Chairs up Their Noses. He was also a member of Australian noise-rocker Venom P. Stinger and Springtime (with Gareth Liddiard and Chris Abrahams), whose 2021 debut went under many radars, including mine.
Of all his projects, his partnership with Cretan lute player Giorgos Xylouris as Xylouris White occupies its own space in my vinyl collection and has provided me with the most listening hours…I can’t get enough, and I’m not alone.
I absolutely love The Forest in Me; it smacks of confidence and creativity and is happy to shift expectations and deliver a sound so different to previous albums while keeping its core structure of lute and drums present. Each song surprises and leaves you wanting more, and at thirty minutes long, it is just too tempting to spin the thing again. I’ve enjoyed this duo since Goats came along in 2014, but this short, sharp and dynamic project is the one I’ve been waiting for.
Glenn Kimpton, Folk Radio
He has also performed with other artists such as Cat Power, Mary Margaret O’Hara, PJ Harvey and Drag City stalwarts Bill Callahan and Bonnie “Prince” Billy.
But back to Bill Callahan, who poetically transcribes White’s magic:
The trap kit—so straightforward, so mysterious. What’s inside those things? Air and light—from which century? Which continent? Depending on how and when you hit them, it can be a vibration sent through a prehistoric breath… the dead, wet leaves you walked through on the way to the first day of school. These are the memories of the drums on this record. Infinite and personal. Editing each other as they muscle to the front or soft shoe to the shadow. Drums are the instrument where you can feel the presence of the player the most—the full body—and sense the thoughts of the player the most. The instrument with the most choices to be made sends out the most brainwaves. A bouquet of brainwaves is on this LP.
Jim oversees it all, surveys from the lost place we’re in, the void – the drumless song. We trust. We trust, Jim. His big green eyes search for the right tool (mallet, brush, etc), eyes that search you like you’re a song he wants to join, wants to see if he can add to or understand.
Before humans, drums were playing-these drums. Genesis was a solo drum piece. After humans, these drums, this album. Someone-the last man-is out in a spaceship at the edge of space. He plays a single chord on a synth to set time free from its bind and then lets go. This album sets time free, lets it frolic, lets it graze, lets it remember.
This is a record of thoughts, memories, surgery. A deft surgical operation you may not even realize is happening as it’s happening but you’re back on your feet when it’s over. Memories refreshed.
All Hits: Memories is released on 23 March via Drag City (Vinyl/Cd/Cassette), who describes the album as Jim riding a lifetime’s worth of technique over an eruption of expression. Each piece provides a portal for recollections and emotions brushed onto the kit and into the light of day via Jim’s unremitting musical imagination.
Of the lead single and video, they add, “Names Make the Name”, casts abstractions of shadow and light, outlining an identity formed by multiple identities; over keyboards treated with subtle reverbs, edits and overdubs, the song modulates through layers of time remembered, truncated, deleted. In step with Jim‘s moody drums-and-more confection, Tran and Masami Tomihisa‘s video marches the viewer through an abandoned wonderland with serpentine fascination.
All Hits: Memories was engineered and produced by Jim White and Guy Picciotto, who also co-wrote six songs on the record together.
All His: Memories Tracklisting
- Curtains
- Percussion Build
- Marketplace
- Soft Material
- St. Francis Place Set Up
- Uncoverup
- Walking The Block
- Jully
- Long Assemblage
- Names Make The Name
- No/Know Now
- Stationary Figure
- Here Comes
Pre-Order All Hits:Memories album – https://www.dragcity.com/products/all-hits-memories
Stream “Names Make The Name” single – https://lnk.to/allhits