Oren Ambarchi – Audience of One (Touch)

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I must admit to have been slightly bemused by the work of Oren Ambarchi to date, having made many attempts to appreciate his output and consistently wondered what the fuss was about. That is to say until Audience of One. Opening track ‘Salt‘ bridges a number of musical worlds at once, it is a form of a traditional poetic song, in a sense it is romantic and nostalgic without recourse to saccharine, so it sits with an opening towards the popular world. It also is wrought within the form of minimal ambient art track with a ear for experimental sound palate. It is the width of the opening that is brought to bear with the composition that allows a wide audience to appreciate the work. The sound of the recording holds a clarity and subtlety that demonstrates the prowess in the recording and mixing by Ambarchi and Byron Scullin and the mastering of Frank Tetaz.

The second track, ‘Knots’, of this four track album, washes away the expectation of a vocal experimental album as it lays deep into electronic sound art and features the brooding undercurrent drumming of Joe Talia. It is a long track at 33.23, pulling out sonic shards and tones, elevating humms and cutting back to the ever present menace of the drums, lying in wait to never explode, even in the frenetic center of the track. Much could be said of the pretensions of Boothby’s French Horn in this track desiring to be a train horn from some long lost diesel but I shall leave such florid imaginings to your good selves. ‘Passage’ cuts back the pace to a distinctly minimal affair of minimal piano, wine glasses, contact microphones, brushes, hammond organ and guitar. The other notable song on the album is Ambarchi’s instrumental cover of Ace Frehley’s ‘Fractured Mirror‘ from his 1978 solo album. It is a magnificent rendition more in the order of Robert Fripp meets the Kiss musicians composition for the attention to technique that Ambarchi and Natasha Rose convey on the guitar. It even has a restrained groove extended with the combination of bass and Mellotron but portends to no dancefloor meanderings and stays clearly within the serious listening arena.

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