A beautiful work that features piano, electronics, processing, and field recordings. Minimal and inward looking, filled with a vast sense of space and restraint, the harmonics of punctuating chords hang in the air over the work's duration, slowly entering a dialog with subtle, bubbling electronics before being slowly overtaken by recordings of bell laden animals as the composition moves toward its conclusion.
This record is part of the MMXX Series. In anticipation of the year 2020, Matière Mémoire asked 20 experimental/electronic artists to create an original 20 minutes piece and an artwork. Each record is limited to 500 copies and comes as a crystal clear vinyl featuring an original track of 20 minutes on one side, and a laser engraved artwork on the other. Each 12" is housed in a transparent sleeve printed with the MMXX logo, coming with a print of the artist artwork.
Oren Ambarchi (born 1969 in Australia) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist with longstanding interests in transcending conventional instrumental approaches. His work focuses mainly on the exploration of the guitar, "re-routing the instrument into a zone of alien abstraction where it's no longer easily identifiable as itself. Instead, it's a laboratory for extended sonic investigation". (
The Wire, UK).
Oren Ambarchi's works are hesitant and tense extended songforms located in the cracks between several schools: modern electronics and processing; laminal improvisation and minimalism; hushed, pensive songwriting; the deceptive simplicity and temporal suspensions of composers such as
Morton Feldman and
Alvin Lucier; and the physicality of rock music, slowed down and stripped back to its bare bones, abstracted and replaced with pure signal.
From the late 90's his experiments in guitar abstraction and extended technique have led to a more personal and unique sound-world incorporating a broader palette of instruments and sensibilities. On releases such as
Grapes From The Estate and
In The Pendulum's Embrace Ambarchi has employed glass harmonica, strings, bells, piano, drums and percussion, creating fragile textures as light as air which tenuously coexist with the deep, wall-shaking bass tones derived from his guitar.
Ambarchi works with simple constructs and parameters; exploring one idea over an extended duration and patiently teasing every nuance and implication from each texture; the phenomena of sum and difference tones; carefully tended arrangements that unravel gently; unprepossessing melodies that slowly work their way through various permutations; resulting in an otherworldly, cumulative impact of patiently unfolding compositions.
Ambarchi has performed and recorded with a diverse array of artists such as
Fennesz,
Otomo Yoshihide, Pimmon,
Keiji Haino,
John Zorn, Rizili, Voice Crack,
Jim O'Rourke, Keith Rowe,
Phill Niblock, Dave Grohl, Gunter Muller,
Evan Parker,
z'ev, Toshimaru Nakamura,
Peter Rehberg,
Merzbow,
Kassel Jaeger,
Anthony Pateras,
Crys Cole,
Giuseppe Ielasi,
Judith Hamann, Sunn 0))),
James Rushford,
Stephen O'Malley and many more.
For 10 years together with Robbie Avenaim, Ambarchi was the co-organiser of the What Is Music? festival, Australia's premier annual showcase of local and international experimental music. Ambarchi now curates the Maximum Arousal series at The Toff In Town in Melbourne and has recently co-produced an Australian television series on experimental music called Subsonics. Ambarchi co-curated the sound program for the 2008 Yokohama Triennale.
Ambarchi has released numerous recordings for international labels such as
Touch, Southern Lord, Table Of The Elements and Tzadik. He is the founder of
Black Truffle Records.
