Monthly Archives: September 2011

12″ White Label vinyl + 320 kbps MP3 download of the tracks
Cut by Jason @ Transition

The third in the series of limited edition vinyl in the Tone 45 series. 100 copies only are available in the TouchShop…

Track listing:

Side One 33rpm
1. Live at Café Oto 14:29

Side Two 33rpm
1. Live at Café Oto 14:39

The third in the Touch white label series after BJNilsen – Vinyl [Tone 45.1] and The Sight Below – N-Plants_Remixes [Tone 45.2]. This was recorded live at Café Oto, London, on April 14, 2011.

Oren Ambarchi 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 recent 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 and many more. Since 2004 Ambarchi has worked with American avant metal outfit Sunn 0))) contributing to many of their releases and side-projects including their Black One album from 2005 and the recent Monoliths & Dimensions release. 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. The festival hosted over 200 local and international performers. 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 recently 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. In 2003 his live release Triste received an ‘honourary mention’ in the Prix Ars Electronica digital music category.

Joe Talia is a drummer, percussionist and electro-acoustic performer based in Melbourne, Australia.

Never satisfied with containment to any one style or discipline, He plays drums, percussion, amplified objects electronics and tape machines. After studying improvisation at the Victorian College of the Arts, Talia went on to become involved in the Australian jazz and improv scene. As well as being a respected drummer, Talia also works in the realm of electro-acoustic music, both live and studio based. His debut solo work, in/exterior, a four part suite of musique concrète compositions, was released in 2006 and since then he has formed an electro-acoustic duo with composer James Rushford, together they have completed two albums, Palisades (sabbatical records 2009) and the upcoming paper fault line, a through-composed tour-de-force of instrumental concrète, blistering noise and contemporary classical virtuosity. He also has a long standing musical partnership with singer-songwriter Ned Collette, working as both a drummer and producer/engineer on Collette’s album Future Suture (Dot Dash 2007) and with Wirewalker, on Over the Stones, Under the Stars (Dot Dash 2009) and performing on several European tours. Talia is also member of the ARIA award winning Andrea Keller Quartet.

Talia has performed, recording and toured with diverse range of musicians and ensembles, including Oren Ambarchi, Robbie Avenaim, Anthony Pateras, Francis Plagne, Thembi Soddell, Sean Baxter, David Shea, Marco Fusinato, The Bartok Project, Rand and Holland, Erik Griswold, Adam Simmons, and countless others.