Touch

Oren Ambarchi biography

Oren Ambarchi is an electronic guitarist and percussionist. Born in Sydney in 1969, he has been performing live since 1986. 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).

Ambarchi is also co-organiser of the What Is Music? Festival, Australia’s premier showcase of local and international experimental music.

Grants, Awards and Distinctions:
2000: Australia Council for the Arts: Grant for presentation of Sydney/Melbourne What Is Music? Festival 2001
2000: Drum Media magazine listed Insulation as one of the 10 best records of the year.
2000: ABC Classic FM New Music Australia: Winner of Australian Improvisatory Music Festival Award
1999: Australia Council for the Arts: Development grant for study and performance in USA
1999: Australia Council for the Arts: Grant for presentation of Sydney/Melbourne What Is Music? Festival 2000
1997: Australia Council for the Arts: Development grant for study and performance in USA

Performances (selection):

2001: Revolver, Melbourne with members of Farmers Manual and Ilpo Vasainen (Pansonic)
2000: Adelaide Festival, with Otomo Yoshihide, David Moss, Cor Fuhler.
UWS, Artspace, and Canberra University as member of Phill Niblock’s ensemble.
Revolver, Melbourne with Christian Fennesz, Peter Rehberg, Keith Rowe and Pimmon.
Palladium, Sydney with Keith Rowe, Jim Denley, Rob Avenaim
Side On, Sydney with Cor Fuhler, Amanda Stewart, Jim Denley.
Big Day Out Festival Melbourne with Matthew Thomas and Pimmon.
Imperial Slacks Gallery with David Haines
1999:Lansdowne, Sydney with Eyvind Kang and Trey Spruance.
1998: Punters Club, Melbourne with Shelley Hirsch
Spongehouse, Sydney with Martin Klapper, Greg Kingston
Tote, Melbourne with Rosy Parlane, Dion Workman.
1997: Harbourside, Sydney with Mike Patton, William Winant.
Palladium with Masonna, Solmania, Trey Spruance.
Knitting Factory, New York with John Zorn, Anthony Coleman, Jim Staley.
Roulette, New York with Rob Avenaim
66, New York with Sabir Mateen, Matt Heyner, David Nuss
DMG, New York with Kato Hideki
Cooler, New York with Thurston Moore, Peter Brotzmann, Nick Kamvissis
Fandango, Osaka with Solmania. Bears, Osaka. Huck Finn, Nagoya Mushroom, Himeji
Milk, Tokyo. Pepperland, Okayama. Mandala 2, Tokyo. 20000 Volts, Tokyo
1996: Artrage Festival, Perth
The Room, Sydney with Yamatsuka Eye.
1995: Harbourside, Sydney with Jon Rose, Rik Rue
The Room, Sydney with Torben Tilly, Jasmine Guffond
Basement, Sydney with Wayne Horvitz
1993/94: Knitting Factory, New York with John Zorn, Ikue Mori, Fred Frith, Arto Lindsay, Kato Hideki, Cyro Baptista
Hosei University, Tokyo with Tatsuya Yoshida, Hoppy Kamiyama, Hirose Junji
Bears, Osaka with Seichi Yamamoto, Masonna. Showboat, Tokyo Big Apple, Kobe

Installations:

2000: Artspace, Sydney, "Autonomous Audio" sound installation with Martin Ng
1999: Jewish Museum, Melbourne, "Art and Kaballah" video and sound installation in collaboration with Janet Laurence
Performance Space, Sydney, music for Frumpus performance

Selected Solo Discography:

Solo
Persona E.R.S. Netherlands (12" 2001)
Stacte.3 Plate Lunch, Germany (LP 2000)
Insulation Touch [# T33.16], UK (CD 2000)
Stacte.2 Jerker, Australia (LP 1999)
Stacte Jerker, Australia (LP 1998)

Collaborative Releases:

Oren Ambarchi & Martin Ng – Reconnaissance Staubgold, Germany (CD/LP 2001)
Ambarchi/Fennesz/Pimmon/Rehberg/Rowe - Afternoon Tea Ritornell, Germany (CD 2000)
Ambarchi and Avenaim – Clockwork Jerker, Australia (3"CD 2000)
Ambarchi and Avenaim – The Alter Rebbe’s Nigun Tzadik, USA (CD 1999)
Solo tracks on compilations
"Ring King" on Communication Problem Vibragun (LP 2000)
Various Locked Grooves on Lockers E.R.S. (LP 2000)
"Strategem (distortus)" on Lowercase compilation Bremsstrahlung (CD 2000)
"No Title" on Maschinelle Straegeme (with Fennesz/Pimmon/Rehberg/Rowe) Ritornell (CD 2000)

T33.18 - Suspension

CD
6 tracks - 54:36.65

Oren Ambarchi is a Sydney-based musician with a longstanding interest in transcending conventional instrumental approaches. He has worked with artists as diverse as Keith Rowe, Christian Fennesz, Sachiko M and Phill Niblock. Suspension is Ambarchi's second release for Touch, after Insulation [Touch # T33.16, 1999]. Although continuing his explorations of the guitar, Oren has almost completely discarded the deconstructed, fragmentary approach to composition that he employed on 1999's excellent Insulation. This disc is more akin to his remarkable Stacte series of LPs (treasure them if you have them, for they are all but gone), where compositions have the exploratory freedom, spontaneity and fluidity of improvised music, yet contain the determination, discipline and solidity of composers such as Alvin Lucier (of whom Ambarchi is an open admirer). As the title suggests, the listener is suspended in dense tonal fields or complete silence; adrift, never touching the bottom, never reaching the surface but continually held in the realm of the instant. Movement and flux contend with stasis and rigidity. Sounds continually unravel and solidify. These works are endless, eternal, never opting for obvious resolutions or easy destinations. Often beginning in abstraction, seemingly random and irregular pulses and tones coalesce and converge. All elements are part of a greater logic, which reveals itself through intense, immersive and repeated listenings. Suspension is Ambarchi's most total and completely realised effort to date.

Guitar recorded in 2000 at jerker house & big jesus burger

Mastered @ Country Masters by Denis Blackham.

Photography: Jon Wozencroft.