The brunt of Ambarchi’ work consists of gracefully looped guitar tones that, although often heavily processed so as to render their origins unrecognizable, are touchingly direct in their subtle shifts and warm, soft aura. This reissue of Suspension, then, serves to reassert Ambarchi’ ability to work with a darker, more sonorous palette. As with his more recent works (such as Grapes From The Estate), tracks still brim with energy, but here it is channelled in a more singular fashion; into more pensive – though also pretty – moods that are then captured from numerous angles.
Compositions hinge upon a simple superimposition of textures – a process which allows Ambarchi to shed a reliance upon complex and often distracting processing techniques and, in a rather precise manner, sharpen the angles and edges of these tones into dense, radiant drones that challenge as much as they engage.
In the early works, one often finds minor sixth drones accompanied by delicate metallic ricochets and other faint flurries of percussion that are hypnotic and even seductive in their elusiveness. Later, however, the lengthy stretches of prowling bell-like tones and the distant sputter of amplifier buzz seem no longer subject to gravity and linger in an orbital realm where notes hang, dissolve and reform in a variety of permutations. With “This Evening So Soonâ€, for instance, the miasma of shifting guitar drones float freely in a sensuous austerity, where each subtle alteration in timbre or momentum works to heighten the suspense laced in between the threads of these finely woven tapestries.
Max Schaefer
