By the end of the 20th century, Chicago’s wunderkind Jim O’Rourke had relocated to New York City. When he wasn’t gigging at his day job with Sonic Youth, O’Rourke could often be found on a laptop at Tonic, fearlessly exploring the next wave of electronic abstract music, grappling with live players, avant-garde legends, and fellow laptop pioneers like Ikue Mori. Legend has it that his own sublime Mego laptop album (coming fast on the heels of friend Christian Fennesz’s own laptop classic from 2001, Endless Summer) was made on a transatlantic flight. The liner notes only mention NY, Osaka and Tokyo but the album speaks to the potential of the time (and the nascent technology), even if you are stuck in the economy section of the plane for eight hours.