Oren Ambarchi

Oren Ambarchi © Greg Clement

Oren Ambarchi (* Sydney) 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.

Peter Evans

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