Oren Ambarchi
Oren Ambarchi (* Sydney, Australia) is a Berlin based composer and multi-instrumentalist who focuses on exploring the guitar. He is an avid collaborator and improviser who has worked with many of today’s leading personalities in the current music scene. He has also been running the Black Truffle label since 2009, which has already produced over 100 highly acclaimed releases.
Ambarchi’s works are both hesitant and extended song forms that move between different schools of thought: modern electronics and processing, improvisation and minimalism, deceptive simplicity, an engagement with composers such as Morton Feldman and Alvin Lucier, and the physicality of rock music.
In the late 1990s, Ambarchi began to explore the sonic possibilities of his guitar beyond conventional playing techniques. On releases such as “Grapes From The Estate” and “In The Pendulum’s Embrace”, he integrates other instruments such as glass harmonica, strings, bells, piano, drums and percussion, creating fragile textures as light and delicate as air that coexist with the deep, shattering bass tones of his guitar.
In 2003, he received an honourable mention at the Prix Ars Electronica in the digital music category for his live release “Triste”. In 2014, he was named Experimental Artist Of The Year by Pitchfork, and his release “Quixotism” was listed in The Wire’s Top 50 of the year. The album “Hubris” (featuring Crys Cole, Mark Fell, Arto Lindsay, Jim O’Rourke, Keith Fullerton Whitman and Ricardo Villalobos among others) was included in many “Best Albums Of 2016” lists, including The Wire, The Rolling Stone, The Quietus and Tiny Mix Tapes.
In 2019, Ambarchi was featured on the cover of the August issue of The Wire magazine, and London’s renowned Café Oto celebrated Ambarchi’s 50th birthday and the 10th anniversary of his label Black Truffle with a three-day festival.
Ambarchi’s latest release is “Shebang (Drag City)”, a collaboration with Chris Abrahams, Johan Berthling, BJ Cole, Sam Dunscombe, Jim O’Rourke, Julia Reidy, Konrad Sprenger and Joe Talia.
All Appearances of Oren Ambarchi
Oren Ambarchi: electric guitar
Konrad Sprenger: computer
Sam Dunscombe: bass clarinet
Mats Gustafsson: baritone sax and flute
Jules Reidy, Phillip Sollmann, Fredrik Rasten: electric guitar
Marcus Pal: electric guitar
Johan Berthling: electric bass
Will Guthrie, Andreas Werliin: drums
crys cole: vocal
The origins of Oren Ambarchi’s signature project date back to 2016, when he released the album ‘Hubris’, which he brought to the stage in 2019 with a performance at Café Oto in London. The live recording ‘Live Hubris’ was released in 2021. Ambarchi says about the creation of this group project in the Monheim Papers
‘Many of my albums start with a conceptual idea. With ‘Hubris’, for example, I was listening to a lot of disco and 80s new wave stuff. There’s usually a brief moment on a record that I find incredible, but that moment only lasts a few seconds. For example, one of the first inspirations for ‘Hubris’ was a 10 second section on the instrumental B-side of Tulio De Piscopo’s ‘Stop Bajon’ 12’. Something about the sound and the way the two palm-muted guitars were panned hard left and hard right inspired me, but it only lasted ten seconds. So I said to myself: Why can’t a whole album sound like those ten seconds? That was an initial spark for ‘Hubris’, just like Wang Chung’s ‘To Live & Die in L.A.’ soundtrack. When I hear something inspiring, it’s often the start of a new album.’
At this time, Ambarchi was travelling from gig to gig and living ‘on the road’ for months at a time and the creation of the album ‘Hubris’ reflects this phase, when he visited and recorded with various fellow musicians. Ambarchi: ‘I think the last person I worked with was Jim O’Rourke when I was in Tokyo. So the album grew slowly during my tour - that’s why there are so many different people from all over the world on the record.’
The Monheim Triennale II the piece ‘Hubris’ was heard in concert fpr the third time. Ambarchi has once again put together an extraordinary group for this. ‘All the players are friends and collaborators with whom I enjoy working. On the one hand, this piece has clear parameters and instructions as to how I would like it to be played. But there is also room for improvisation and extended sections for each player’s own interpretation. Each player has a personal voice and brings something unique to the piece.’
With quotes from Monheim Papers 2025, Thomas Venker.
