The ever-prolific Oren Ambarchi will release a new LP, Sagittarian Domain, via Editions Mego on August 28.
It’s one of several album-length works that the Sydney-born has been involved with so far this year – these include a CD on Touch, Audience Of One; collaborations with Fire! and Thomas Brinkmann, and most recently a furious live trio recording with Keiji Haino and Stephen O’Malley under the name Nazoranai.
Sagittarian Domain was recorded in a single session in Melbourne, and features Ambarchi on guitars, Moog bass, drums, percussion and vocals; with strings arranged by James Rushford and performed by he (viola), Elizabeth Welsh (violin) and Judith Hamann (cello). It consists of one 33-minute piece, which was featured in Benedict Andrews’ production of ‘Every Breath’ at the Belvoir St Theatre, Sydney 2012
According to the press notes by Frances Plagne, “Sagittarian Domain displaces Ambarchi’s trademark guitar sound from the centre of the mix, its presence felt only as an occasional ghostly reverberated shimmer. Endlessly pulsating guitar and bass lines sit alongside electronic percussion and thundering motorik drumming (familiar from his work with Keiji Haino) at the core of the piece, locking into a voodoo groove like Faust covering a 70’s cop show theme.
“The work is founded on hypnotic almost-repetition, the accents of the drum hits and interlocking bass and guitar lines shifting almost imperceptibly back and forwards over the beat as they undergo gradual transformations of timbre. Cut-up and phase-shifted strings enter around the half-way mark like an abstracted memory of the eastern-tinged fusion of the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s classic Visions of the Emerald Beyond, before returning for an extended, stark yet affecting come-down coda, equal parts Gavin Bryars and Purple Rain.”
More information and pre-order links for vinyl and CD can be found here.
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