Blog Archives

Interview with 5049 Records

Based in Sydney, Australia, Oren Ambarchi is a gifted composer, multi-instrumentalist and improviser who has been traveling the world, crafting a most singular musical vision for the past twenty five years. He’s also an enthusiastic listener and avid record collector, a gourmand and happens to be one of my favorite musicians around. On a quick visit to New York for performances with Alvin Lucier and Loren Connors, Oren dropped by for a candid conversation about his early days as an Hasidic student in NYC, record collecting, learning to play guitar, running his own record label and a whole lot more. I love Oren’s music deeply and am delighted conversation got to happen. After our talk, Oren and I headed over to Russ & Daughters Cafe and gorged on smoked fish and chopped liver.

www.5049records.com/podcast/oren-ambarchi

CRYS COLE & OREN AMBARCHI – “HOTEL RECORD”

Black Truffle BT029

Hotel Record is the second release from the duo/couple of crys cole and Oren Ambarchi, following on from Sonja Henies vei 31 (PLANAM 031LP, 2014). Where their debut recording presented a disquieting portrait of the erotic dimension of romantic intimacy, the follow-up continues to explore the pair’s simultaneously musical and romantic relationship in a more subtle fashion, presenting four long-form pieces that touch on the variety of forms the life of this couple takes: as a musical duo, as a pair of travelers to exotic locations, as opponents in a game of cards… Each of the double LP’s four sides presents a distinct sound-world, yet each manages to attain the same suspended, half-sleeping feeling, outlining a space where improbable combinations of the electronic and the acoustic, of extreme closeness and amorphous distance, occurring with the gentle insistence of a dream.

The opening “Call Myself” calmly unfolds a fabric of long tones from electronic organ and guitar, combining the sliding, aleatoric effects of classic David Behrman with a more hands-on feel. Over the top of this slowly shifting tonal bed, cole’s voice mutters unintelligibly into a Buchla synth, teasing the listener by suggesting a meaning that remains always out of the ear’s reach. “Francis Debacle (Uno)” builds on the foundations of a heavily amplified session of the titular card game, overlaying vocal murmurs and exhalations and mysterious room-sounds to create an impossible aural environment. On “Burrata”, a palette of vintage 1980s digital synthesizer sounds combined with guitars create an irregular texture of lush chords and bubbling melodic details, into which cole’s voice processed by a vocoder, is interwoven, reading fragments of romantic correspondence. Finally, on “Pad Phet Gob”, field recordings made in Thailand become an ambiguously acoustic/electronic rainforest, eventually giving way to a mysterious, wavering electronic tone-field punctuated by sibilant, popping mouth-sounds.

Carving out an intimate and human sonic space across a diverse array of compositional approaches, sound sources, fidelities, and textures, Hotel Record is the latest dispatch from the continuing explorations of a unique duo. Ambarchi and cole reimagine electro-acoustic music, not simply as “abstract” sound, but as a diary, a love poem, a dream.

Comes in deluxe gatefold sleeve with photography by crys cole and LP design via Stephen O’Malley; Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering.

from SoundOhm, Italy:

For many, the geography defying partnership of crys cole and Oren Ambarchi is the likely source of envy and awe – a creatively rigorous adventure in sound, egged forward by the romance they share. Ambarchi needs little introduction. Over the last 20 years, he has risen as a leading light of experimental and electroacoustic practice, as recognised for his collaborations with Jim O’Rourke, Keiji Haino, Sunn O))), Keith Rowe, Fire!, John Tilburyand countless others, as he is for his solo work. Cole, an artist focused on the constrained limits of sonic possibility, bridging gallery and musical contexts, has increasingly caught the attention of the international experimental music community over the last decade, running a parallel course in her dedication to collaborative and solo work. Following Sonja Henies vei 31, their debut from 2014, an album as much as an abstract diary centred around the “erotic dimension of romantic intimacy”, the duo is back with the stunning LP Hotel Record, continuing the exploration of their musical and romantic relationship, marked by the subtlety of investigation which has defined both of their careers.

Experimental musics tend to be consciously resistant to explicit narrative or location. When attempted, it is rarely done well, or retains the openness which make these territories so striking. These elements might be understood as experimental sound’s the most challenging and under-explored trajectories. They are the conceptual architectures of Hotel Record, and the root of its overwhelming success. Each of its four sides offers a distinct sound-world – subjective renderings of time, space, and geography through the lens of interplay, creative and romantic – locations in the hazy, amorphous expanse of the album’s whole. A world of introspection and cohesive diversity, modeled by the experiences of two constant travelers, forced to see themselves, each other, and their relationship, evolving against a shifting landscape.

Built from improbable combinations of the electronic and acoustic – sonic demarcations of time, place, and emotion, Hotel Record transcends any reductive idea of music. Through synthesis, electronics, field recording, acoustic instrumentation and voice, it is an installment in the duo’s aural diary. A sonic rendering of the transmogrification of self, falling within the undefinable realm between sound-art and and the outer boundaries of how musicality is understood. A rippling, profoundly intimate construction of texture and tone, so beautiful, surprising, and filled with humanity, that it overwhelms the ear. Out via Black Truffle, through Hotel Record , cole and Ambarchi show us what great art is all about – an opening of self, rigor of ideas, and adventure which never ends. An album which will send you excitedly flipping through its four sides for years to come. Not to be missed by any count.

Live Shows August – September 2017

Oren Ambarchi & Stephen O’Malley DJ set

@ Lazerpig, Melbourne, Australia

www.lazerpig.com.au/

 

Sun August 22

Nazoranai – Keiji Haino/Stephen O’Malley/Oren Ambarchi

@ Supersense Festival

Arts Centre, Melbourne, Australia

supersense.artscentremelbourne.com.au/act/nazoranai.html

 

Sun August 22

Oren Ambarchi / Zeena Parkins duo

@ Overground, Arts Centre, Melbourne, Australia

supersense.artscentremelbourne.com.au/act/overground.html

 

Thu August 24

Oren Ambarchi & Will Guthrie duo

+ Bill Orcutt, Tony Buck & more

@ Festival Meteo, Mullhouse, France

www.festival-meteo.fr/spip.php?mot1538

 

Fri August 25

Oren Ambarchi solo

+ Norbert Moslang, Jason Khan, John Tilbury, MEV & more
@ Festival Meteo, Mullhouse, France

www.festival-meteo.fr/spip.php?mot1538

 

Sun August 27

Oren Ambarchi solo

+ Peter Brotzmann, Heather Leigh, Steve Noble, Toshinori Kondo & more

@ Summer Bummer Festival, Antwerp, Belgium

SUMMER BUMMER FESTIVAL 2017 – DAY 2

 

Tue August 29

Oren Ambarchi solo

+ Bill Orcutt

@ Jazz Cafe, London

http://thejazzcafelondon.com/event/oren-ambarchi-bill-orcutt

 

Fri September 8

Oren Ambarchi solo

+ Nite Jewel, Dwarfs Of East Agouza & more

@ WOS Festival, Santiago De Copostela, Spain

wosfestival.workonsunday.es/en/

 

Sun September 23

Oren Ambarchi solo

+ trio with DJ Sniff & Nguyen Thanh Thuy

@ Asian Meeting Festival, Sapporo, Japan

siaf.jp/en/projects/ea-amf

 

Thu September 28

Oren Ambarchi & Stephen O’Malley perform ‘Criss Cross’ (Lucier) & ‘South Pole’ (Dumitrescu)

+ Lubomyr Melnick, Eastman, Feldman, Moondog, Oliveros & more

@ Sacrum Profanum, Krakow, Poland

karnet.krakow.pl/22611-krakow-sacrum-profanum-2017

 

Sat September 30

Oren Ambarchi with Hyperion Ensemble
+ Lubomyr Melnick, Eastman, Feldman, Moondog, Oliveros & more

@ Sacrum Profanum, Krakow, Poland

karnet.krakow.pl/22611-krakow-sacrum-profanum-2017

Live Shows June – July 2017

Fri June 2
Oren Ambarchi & Will Guthrie duo
+ Terry Riley, Russell Haswell, DJ Marfox Maya Dunietz & more
@ Serralves Festival
Porto
Portugal
www.serralvesemfesta.com/pt/

Sat June 10
Oren Ambarchi solo
+ Limpe Fuchs, Crys Cole, Mohammad Reza Mortazavi, Nandini Muthuswamy,
Ryoko Akama, Éliane Radigue, Jana Winderen, Rian Treanor, Laurie Spiegel,
Gamelan Sekar Petak & more
@ Lush Spectra
Sheffield
UK
www.ourfaveplaces.co.uk/events/music/lush-spectra

Thu June 22
Oren Ambarchi & Thomas Brinkmann duo
+ Crys Cole, Frank Dommert
@ Museum Abteiberg
Mönchengladbach
Germany
www.museum-abteiberg.de/index.php?id=307&L=1

Fri June 30
Oren Ambarchi & Crys Cole duo
+ James Rushford, Manuel Lima
@ Cafe Oto
London
UK
www.cafeoto.co.uk/

Thu July 13
Oren Ambarchi & Crys Cole duo
+ Greenhouse
@ Ace Art
Winnipeg
Canada
allevents.in/winnipeg/oren-ambarchicrys-cole-duo-album-release-w-greenhouse/427425360970324#

Live Shows May 2017

Mon May 15
Oren Ambarchi presents ‘Hubris’ multi-channel version
@ ‘Inner Spaces’
Centero Culturale San Fedele
Milan
Italy

Tue May 16
Oren Ambarchi solo
@ Kino Siska
Ljubljana
Slovenia
www.kinosiska.si/dogodek/oren-ambarchi/

Thu May 18
Oren Ambarchi solo
+ Kalimi
@ Centro D’Arte
Padova
Italy
www.centrodarte.it/concerti/2017-05-18-kalimi-ambarchi/

Sat May 20
Oren Ambarchi solo
@ Limonaia di Villa Strozzi
Florence
Italy
fabbricaeuropa.net/en/events/oren-ambarchi/

Thu May 25
Oren Ambarchi
+ Swan Meat/Cristiano Luciani/Cosmic Rays
@ Macao
Milan
Italy
ner.to/eventi/no-es-uno-w-oren-ambarchi-swan-meat-cristiano-luciani-macao-milano-25-maggio-2017

Live Shows Spring 2017

Wed April 26
Oren Ambarchi & Will Guthrie duo
@ Jazzhouse
Copenhagen, Denmark
www.jazzhouse.dk/

Fri April 28
Oren Ambarchi solo
+ Laurel Halo, Beatrice Dillon, Eartheater & more
@ Intonal Festival
Malmo, Sweden
www.intonalfestival.com/

Live Shows Early 2017

Mon Jan 16
Crys Cole & Oren Ambarchi duo
+ James Rushford/Joe Talia, Okkyung Lee,
@ Nothing But Disaster Follows Applause
The Oratory
Abbotsford Convent
1 St Heliers St, Abbotsford
Melbourne
Australia
www.liquidarchitecture.org.au/program/okkyung-lee/

Thu Jan 26
Oren Ambarchi / Jim O’Rourke / Konrad Sprenger trio
@ The Playhouse
Kitakyushu Performing Arts Center
River Walk 6F
Kitakyushu
Japan
cca-kitakyushu.org/?lang=en

Sun Jan 29
Oren Ambarchi / Rohan Drape / Alex Garsden / Joe Talia
+ more
@ Inland
Church Of All Nations
Carlton
Melbourne
Australia
www.inlandconcertseries.net/

Thu Feb 23
Oren Ambarchi / Okkyung Lee / Alexander Kislov trio
+ Luke Fowler, Pita, Thomas Brinkmann, Anthony Shakir & more
@ Geometry Of Now
GES-2
Moscow
Russia
geometryofnow.v-a-c.ru/

Sat Feb 25
Oren Ambarchi & Will Guthrie duo
+ Eliane Radigue, Charles Curtis, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Adrian Sherwood,
Lee Scratch Perry, Inga Copeland & more
@ Geometry Of Now
GES-2
Moscow
Russia
geometryofnow.v-a-c.ru/

Mon Feb 27
Keiji Haino / Jim O’Rourke / Oren Ambarchi trio
+ Tamaru, Taeji Sawai
@ SuperDeluxe
Tokyo
Japan
www.super-deluxe.com/room/4248/

Sun March 12
Oren Ambarchi
+ Neil Finn, The Specials, Teenage Fanclub, Kurt Vile, Nicolas Jaar & more
@ Golden Plains 2017
Victoria
Australia
2017.goldenplains.com.au/

Wed March 22
Ash Ra Tempel Experience – Manuel Gottsching, Ariel Pink, Oren Ambarchi, Shags Chamberlain
+ Manuel Gottsching’s E2-E4
@ Barbican Centre
London
UK
www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=20559

OREN AMBARCHI – “HUBRIS”

eMEGO227

Hubris Parts 1-3
LP, CD & Digital
Release date: 11th November 2016
Label: Editions Mego

Players:
Oren Ambarchi, Crys Cole, Mark Fell, Will Guthrie, Arto Lindsay, Jim O’Rourke, Konrad Sprenger, Joe Talia, Ricardo Villalobos, Keith Fullerton Whitman

Mastered & cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin, April 2016

Photography by Estelle Hanania
Sculptures by Daniel Druet
Design by Stephen O’Malley

Hubris continues the exploration of relentless, driving rhythms heard on Ambarchi’s Sagittarian Domain (2012) and Quixotism (2014). Where those records looked to Krautrock and techno for their starting points, the sidelong opening track here begins from the perhaps unlikely inspirations of disco and new wave, drawing particularly from Ambarchi’s love of Wang Chung’s soundtrack to William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A. Leaving behind the song-forms of these reference points, Ambarchi weaves a sustained and pulsating web of layered palm-muted guitars from which individual voices rise up and recede, eventually setting the stage for some lush guitar synth from Jim O’Rourke. Arnold Dreyblatt collaborator Konrad Sprenger contributes overtone-rich motorized guitar, pushing the piece into a satisfying intersection of shimmering minimalism and rhythmic drive that smoothly builds up until the entrance of Mark Fell’s electronic percussion in its final section.

After a short second part, in which Ambarchi, O’Rourke and Crys Cole pay tribute to the skewed harmonic sense of Albert Marcoeur with a track built from layered bass guitar figures and abstracted speech, the long final piece pushes the concept of the first side into darker and denser areas. Joined by electronic rhythms from Ricardo Villalobos and the twin drums of Joe Talia and Will Guthrie, the layered guitars of the first piece are transformed into a raw and tumbling fusion-funk groove that calls to mind early Weather Report or even the first Golden Palominos LP. As this stellar rhythm section rides a single repeated chord change into oblivion, a series of spectacular events emerge in the foreground: first, aleatoric synthesizer burbles from Keith Fullerton Whitman, then slashing skronk guitar from Arto Lindsay, until finally Ambarchi’s own fuzzed-out guitar harmonics take center stage as the piece builds to an ecstatic frenzy. Few artists could hope to include such an incredible variety of collaborators on one record and still hope for it to have a unique identity, but Ambarchi manages to do just that, crafting three pieces that emerge directly out of his previous work while also pushing ahead into new dimensions.
[Francis Plagne]

editionsmego.com/release/EMEGO-227

Live Shows Autumn 2016

Thu Oct 13
Oren Ambarchi & Stephen O’Malley perform Alvin Lucier’s “Criss Cross” & “Hanover”
+ Joan LaBarbara, Charles Curtis, Judith Hamann, Anthony Burr, Gary Schmalzl, Hildegard Kleeb, Hauke Harder & more
@ Alvin Lucier’s 85th birthday festival
ZHDK
Zurich, Switzerland
www.zhdk.ch/?lucier

Sat Oct 22
Oren Ambarchi & Thomas Brinkmann duo
+ Mark Fell solo
@ Spazio Aereo
Venice, Italy
www.spazioaereo.com/index.php/live/AMBARCHI/

Thu Oct 27
Oren Ambarchi solo
+ Dimitris Sideris, Michalis Moschoutis
@ Ride Cycle Culture Cafe
Chania
Crete, Greece
www.facebook.com/events/1710024459318795/

Sat Oct 29
Oren Ambarchi solo
+ Tumulus, Rie Nakajima, Yes Deer
@ Coax Festival
FGO Barbara
Paris, France
www.coaxfestival.com/

and previously in the autumn…

Tue Sept 6
Oren Ambarchi solo
+ F/I/P (Bill Nace & Jake Meginsky)
Donna Parker & Vic Rawlings (duo)
@ Non-Event
Le Laboratoire
650 East Kendall Street
Cambridge, MA , USA
nonevent.org/

Thu Sept 8
Oren Ambarchi solo
+ Zeena Parkins / Brian Chase duo
@ First Unitarian Congregational Society
Brooklyn Heights
Brooklyn, NY, USA
issueprojectroom.org/event/oren-ambarchi-zeena-parkins-brian-chase

Oren Ambarchi, Mark Fell, Will Guthrie & Sam Shalabi Live in London | 1st September 2016 at The ICA

Oren

with Nadah El Shazly

ICA, The Mall, London, September 1st 2016

Tickets Here ­ masafat.seetickets.com/ masafat.thirtythreethirtythree.com

Full Festival ­ www.facebook.com/events/1608073219491706/

A four­way collaboration between experimental heavyweights kicks off proceedings at Masãfãt

2016.

Mark Fell has been releasing music since the 1990s, combining his interests in computer­generated sound and dance culture. As one half of snd, he chews up rave rhythms until they were unrecognisable, and as Sensate Focus he turns house music inside out. Oren Ambarchi has a similar destructive approach to familiar musics, using his guitar to contort and mangle harsh noise, glacial minimalism, contemplative signal manipulation, free improvisation, krauty jamming, pummelling drumming and straight­up songwriting.

Ambarchi and Fell are joined by Egyptian­Canadian musician Sam Shalabi, whose work has seen him fuse shaabi, noise, classical and free improvisation; as well as Will Guthrie, an adept improviser who works with everything from traditional percussion to everyday junk.

Collaborating here for the first time, these are four performers that embrace mutating and shifting musical forms – and this performance promises a discombobulating musical experience.

Joining them is Nadah El Shazly, the Cairo­based singer, composer and producer. Her productions and performances display myriad influences, but her disarming voice is always front and centre.

Final

Black Truffle releases LP by 3/4HadBeenEliminated

3quarters1

Tracklisting:

1. Nekyia
2. I Am A Prune Cake On A Background Of Corn Semolina

The experimental Italian quartet will to release two-track LP on Oren Ambarchi’s Black Truffle label.

Earlier this year when our Ian Maleney met with Oren Ambarchi in a Dublin pub before the Australian was due to play its small basement, he imparted of his label, “not many people know about a lot of the artists there but I believe the level is extremely high,” before suggesting 2016 was to present a wave of new music. As we enter August, Black Truffle this year has released long players from Charlemagne Palestine, free improve ensemble AMM and Ambarchi’s Pale Calling LP made with Kassel Jaeger and James Rushford. While most recently, Keiji Haino and Jim O’Rourke reconnected with Oren Ambarchi to release another collaborative album entitled I Wonder If You Noticed ”I’m Sorry” Is Such A Lovely Sound It Keeps Things From Getting Worse which follows several a series or irregular long-winded titles translated from Japanese.

Now invited into the Black Truffle stable is 3/4HadBeenEliminated, a trio-turned-quartet since drummer Tony Arrabito was invited to join Claudio Rocchetti, Stefano Pilia and PAN affiliate Valerio Tricoli’s improvisational trinity. Their forthcoming two-track Speak To Me LP presents the group with its sixth album, with Ambarchi and 3/4HadBeenEliminated crossing paths in the past by their involvement with Swedish label Häpna. Said to be recorded in Bologna and Berlin over several years, the album was made using “source material for compositions built up through layering, editing and analog manipulation,” which the label has aligned with the music Teo Macero, Faust and This Heat. Black Truffle further describe Speak To Me as melancholic instrumental ruminations that “sit alongside cracked electronics, concrete sounds and Tricoli’s whispered vocals, drawn together into dense assemblages animated by gradual transformations and sudden jump cuts.”

Bandcamp

You can find many of Oren’s releases <a href=”http://www.orenambarchi.bandcamp.com”>on Bandcamp</a>

Biography

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 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 has performed and recorded with a diverse array of artists such as Fennesz, Charlemagne Palestine, Sunn 0)), Thomas Brinkmann, crys cole, Keiji Haino, Alvin Lucier, John Zorn, Annea Lockwood, Alvin Curran, Loren Connors, Manuel Gottsching/Ash Ra, Merzbow, Jim O’Rourke, Keith Rowe, David Rosenboom, Julia Reidy, Akio Suzuki, Phill Niblock, John Tilbury, Richard Pinhas, Evan Parker, Fire! and many more.

Ambarchi has released numerous recordings for labels such as Touch, Editions Mego, Drag City, PAN, Southern Lord, Kranky and Tzadik. His acclaimed trio with Keiji Haino and Jim O’Rourke performs in Tokyo annually with many of their concerts documented on Ambarchi’s Black Truffle label. Black Truffle has over 90 releases to date.

In 2003 his live release Triste received an honorary mention in the Prix Ars Electronica digital music category. His release Quixotism was listed in The Wire magazine’s top 50 releases of 2014 and that same year Pitchfork named him Experimental Artist Of The Year. His 2016 album Hubris and featured an astonishing cast of players including crys cole, Mark Fell, Arto Lindsay, Jim O’Rourke, Keith Fullerton Whitman and Ricardo Villalobos amongst others. Hubris was listed in numerous ‘Best Albums Of 2016″ listings in renowned magazine’s such as The Wire, Rolling Stone, The Quietus and Tiny Mix Tapes. In 2019 Ambarchi was the cover feature for the August #426 issue of the Wire Magazine.

In May 2019 renowned London venue Cafe Oto celebrated Ambarchi’s 50th birthday and the 10 year anniversary of his Black Truffle label with a 3-day festival featuring a packed international bill of special guests, projects and collaborations, all closely associated with Oren and his label. The Live Hubris release on Black Truffle documents the final performance from this event, featuring fifteen of Ambarchi’s close collaborators.

Ambarchi’s latest release is Shebang (Drag City) and features Chris Abrahams, Johan Berthling, BJ Cole, Sam Dunscombe, Jim O’Rourke, Julia Reidy, Konrad Sprenger and Joe Talia.

HAINO/O’ROURKE/AMBARCHI

BT09

KEIJI HAINO/JIM O’ROURKE/OREN AMBARCHI – NOW WHILE IT IS STILL WARM LET US POUR IN ALL THE MYSTERY LP/CD (BT09)

Following on from last year’s acclaimed ‘Imikizushi’ (BT 07), ‘now while it’s still warm let us pour in all the mystery’ is the fourth release from the established power trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke and Oren Ambarchi, recorded in January 2012 at their yearly concert at SuperDeluxe, Tokyo. While the trio’s two previous double LP releases featured sprawling, side-long performances, the music here is presented in six shorter pieces, each one displaying a different side of the trio’s interactions, from holy minimalism to cave-man rock.

The record begins with the trio joined by special guests Charlemagne Palestine and Eiko Ishibashi, conjuring ghostly tones from wine glasses as an accompaniment to Haino’s angelic vocals. This ten-minute piece, which moves from near silence and the sound of onstage footsteps to a stunning passage of clean guitar work from Haino, is steeped in the same mysterious atmospherics as Haino’s great folk-drone project, Nijumu. When Haino turns to the flute on the LP’s second track, a performance that clearly demonstrates the importance of the special concept of space and silence (ma) that Haino has developed from traditional Japanese aesthetics, O’Rourke and Ambarchi transform into the delicate and probing rhythm section of a classic 70s fusion side.

When the trio return to the crushing free-rock of their last two records, O’Rourke’s heavily effected bass rolling alongside Ambarchi’s tumbling rhythms as Haino’s guitar squeals and slashes above them, their performances display a new purposefulness and concision. Now truly operating as a band after a number of years of playing together, the pieces here feel like instant rocks songs, O’Rourke and Ambarchi instantly locking into solid riffs over which Haino alternates between jarring no-wave chords, intense soloing and his signature vocalisations. When the trio slow down and stretch out, the rhythm section plods like an abstracted Crazy Horse on the brink of collapse, and Haino elicits long, mournful solos reminiscent of the first classic Fushitshusha double live LP.

Perhaps more accessible than the trio’s previous recordings because of its range and concision, ‘now while it’s still warm let us pour in all the mystery’ exudes the dark, alien quality of Haino’s greatest recordings and testifies to the strength of the musical bond that has developed between these three players. [Francis Plagne]

Released as a 6 panel digipak CD and as limited edition LP in a lavish gatefold with a printed inner sleeve.

Design by Stephen O’Malley with high quality live shots by Ujin Matsuo and stunning artwork by Shunichiro Okada.

TO:61 | Oren Ambarchi – “Grapes from the Estate”

TO61 - Grapes from the Estate - Oren Ambarchi

CD (deleted) – 4 tracks

Track listing:

1. Corkscrew
2. Girl With The Silver Eyes
3. Remedios The Beauty
4. Stars Aligned, Webs Spun

Oren Ambarchi’s third solo project for Touch [after Suspension and Insulation] sees him reaching beyond the work for electric guitar that he’s become recognised for, expanding his palette and taking his investigations into another sphere entirely. Grapes from the Estate features new instrumentation (strings, tuned bells, percussion and others that can only be guessed at), but the singular and unmistakable influence that Ambarchi exerts on these new materials is what makes it such an indelible work.

There is a reconciliation of his love of song-based music and his determination to deal in pure sound. The result is a work that truly eludes such arbitrary definitions. Grapes From The Estate is an all consuming experience that draws the listener out of an ordinary sense of time, into a world beyond it.

T33.18 | Oren Ambarchi – “Suspension”

T33.18 - Suspension - Oren Ambarchi

CD – 6 tracks

Track Listing:

1. wednesday
2. vogler
3. this evening so soon
4. gene
5. suspension
6. as far as the eye can see

 

 

T33.16 | Oren Ambarchi – “Insulation”

T3316 - Insulation - Oren Ambarchi

CD – 11 tracks