Oren Ambarchi
Encyclopedia
Oren Ambarchi is a multi-instrumentalist
who in major plays electric guitar and drums, with longstanding interests in transcending conventional instrumental approaches. He was born in Sydney
, Australia
in 1969 to a Jewish family originally from Iraq
.
He was a member of noise band
Phlegm with Robbie Avenaim, with whom he co-organised the What Is Music
Festival. His work focuses mainly on the exploration of the guitar, though he also plays drums and percussion in some of his live performances.
's Black One
album in 2005, and has since become a frequent live performer with the band, as well as contributing to the Oracle
EP and Monoliths & Dimensions
album. He also released a vinyl EP with Attila Csihar
and Sunn O)))'s Greg Anderson under the name Burial Chamber Trio
; and has performed with Attila Csihar
and Stephen O'Malley
, the other half of Sunn O))), under the name Gravetemple
. Ambarchi also works in popular music contexts and is a drummer for the group Sun with vocalist Chris Townend formerly of Kiss My Poodles Donkey.
In May 2010 he performed live with Boris
at the Vivid Live Noise Night curated by Lou Reed
and Laurie Anderson
. Ambarchi collaborated with multi-instrumentalist
Paul Duncan of Warm Ghost
on experimental music projects.
Multi-instrumentalist
A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays a number of different instruments.The Bachelor of Music degree usually requires a second instrument to be learned , but people who double on another instrument are not usually seen as multi-instrumentalists.-Classical music:Music written for Symphony...
who in major plays electric guitar and drums, with longstanding interests in transcending conventional instrumental approaches. He was born in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in 1969 to a Jewish family originally from Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
.
Background
Ambarchi has been performing music live since 1986. In the late 1980s he played free jazz in Sydney, originally as a drummer. In an interview with ABC Radio broadcaster, Jon Rose, Ambarchi described how he started playing guitar,There happened to be one laying around in our rehearsal room. I picked it up and starting hitting it with drumsticks and using it in whatever way I wanted to use it in, and one thing led to another. I'm glad I wasn't trained. I've always loved rock music, I grew up listening to pop and rock, so that was in my mind, but I've also been interested in electronics. I never wanted to learn to play it properly, it was an object as much as an instrument.
He was a member of noise band
Noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
Phlegm with Robbie Avenaim, with whom he co-organised the What Is Music
What Is Music
What Is Music is an experimental music festival held in Australia. It originally emerged in Sydney in 1994 as a platform to expose unusual contemporary musical forms that were otherwise unknown to the general public at that point in time...
Festival. His work focuses mainly on the exploration of the guitar, though he also plays drums and percussion in some of his live performances.
Sunn O))) Collaborations
Ambarchi contributed to drone doom band Sunn O)))Sunn O)))
Sunn O))) is an American doom metal band known for its synthesis of diverse genres including drone, ambient, noise, and black metal. Supported by a varying cast of collaborators, the band has two core members: Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson .-History:Sunn O))) is named after the Sunn...
's Black One
Black One
Black One is the sixth album by Sunn O))). It is a combination of both experimental and traditional Sunn O))), utilizing many guest musicians, including black metal musicians Malefic and Wrest from Xasthur and Leviathan, respectively...
album in 2005, and has since become a frequent live performer with the band, as well as contributing to the Oracle
Oracle (Sunn O))) album)
Oracle is an EP by Sunn O))) containing material written for a collaboration with the American sculptor Banks Violette.The jackhammer in "Belülről Pusztít" was provided by Joe Preston. Belülről Pusztít is a Hungarian phrase meaning "destroys from the inside"...
EP and Monoliths & Dimensions
Monoliths & Dimensions
Monoliths & Dimensions is the seventh studio album by the avant-garde drone doom band Sunn O))). The album was created and recorded over a period of two years and features the collaborations of composer Eyvind Kang, Australian guitar player Oren Ambarchi, Hungarian vocalist Attila Csihar, Dylan...
album. He also released a vinyl EP with Attila Csihar
Attila Csihar
Attila Csihar , also sometimes known as Void, is a Hungarian black metal vocalist, best known for his vocal work on the album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas by Mayhem. Author Ian Christe describes his vocals as "operatic."-Biography:...
and Sunn O)))'s Greg Anderson under the name Burial Chamber Trio
Burial Chamber Trio
Burial Chamber Trio is a drone doom band consisting of American guitarist/bassist Greg Anderson, Hungarian vocalist Attila Csihar and Australian multi-instrumentalist Oren Ambarchi...
; and has performed with Attila Csihar
Attila Csihar
Attila Csihar , also sometimes known as Void, is a Hungarian black metal vocalist, best known for his vocal work on the album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas by Mayhem. Author Ian Christe describes his vocals as "operatic."-Biography:...
and Stephen O'Malley
Stephen O'Malley
Stephen O'Malley is a musician, predominantly a guitarist, producer and composer from Seattle, Washington who has conceptualized and participated in numerous drone doom, death/doom, and experimental music groups....
, the other half of Sunn O))), under the name Gravetemple
Gravetemple
Gravetemple is the name given to the line-up of Attila Csihar, Stephen O'Malley and Oren Ambarchi. The trio formed in the summer of 2006 to perform a series of live shows in Israel, while Israel was engaged in the 2006 Lebanon War. In Summer 2008 the trio reformed together with Australian drummer...
. Ambarchi also works in popular music contexts and is a drummer for the group Sun with vocalist Chris Townend formerly of Kiss My Poodles Donkey.
In May 2010 he performed live with Boris
Boris (band)
is a Japanese experimental rock band, known for often combining and switching between different music genres including drone metal, sludge metal, noise rock, psychedelic rock, ambient and pop...
at the Vivid Live Noise Night curated by Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
and Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson
Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...
. Ambarchi collaborated with multi-instrumentalist
Multi-instrumentalist
A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays a number of different instruments.The Bachelor of Music degree usually requires a second instrument to be learned , but people who double on another instrument are not usually seen as multi-instrumentalists.-Classical music:Music written for Symphony...
Paul Duncan of Warm Ghost
Warm Ghost
Warm Ghost is an American alternative music group based on the multi-instrumentalist Paul Duncan who specializes in eclectic sounds from a variety of music genres and who has a background is sound design. Duncan teamed with Oliver Chapoy and records music under the moniker Warm Ghost in 2011...
on experimental music projects.
Partial Discography
- (1999) Clockwork, with Robbie Avenaim (Jerker Productions; ::room40:: reissue 2005)
- (1999) The Alter Rebbe's Nigun, with Robbie Avenaim (Tzadik RecordsTzadik RecordsTzadik Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in avant-garde and experimental music. The label was established by the eclectic composer and saxophonist John Zorn in 1995; Zorn is the executive producer of all Tzadik releases...
) - (2000) Insulation (TouchTouch MusicTouch is a British audio-visual organisation, operating the Touch label. It is the main arm of the London-based multimedia publishing company Touch, established in 1982...
) - (2000) Afternoon Tea with Christian Fennesz, Paul GoughPimmonPimmon is the recording name of Australian musician Paul Gough. He has released records on labels such as Fat Cat Records, Fällt, Tigerbeat6, Staalplaat and Staubgold, and collaborated with Keith Rowe and Oren Ambarchi, among others....
, Peter Rehberg, Keith RoweKeith RoweKeith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe's paintings have been featured on most of his own albums...
(Ritornell) - (2002) Suspension (TouchTouch MusicTouch is a British audio-visual organisation, operating the Touch label. It is the main arm of the London-based multimedia publishing company Touch, established in 1982...
) - (2003) Sun (Preservation Records)
- (2003) Triste (Idea Records (US)))
- (2003) My days are darker than your nights with Johan Berthling (HäpnaHäpnaHäpna is a Swedish record label. It has released records by Toshiya Tsunoda, Sagor & Swing, Eric Malmberg, Hans Appelqvist and Tape.-External links:***...
) - (2004) Grapes from the EstateGrapes from the EstateGrapes From The Estate is an album by the Australian ambient musician Oren Ambarchi. It was released by Touch Music on CD in 2004, and by Southern Lord Records in 2006 on 2LP.-Track listing:#Corkscrew – 9:43#Girl With The Silver Eyes – 9:39...
(TouchTouch MusicTouch is a British audio-visual organisation, operating the Touch label. It is the main arm of the London-based multimedia publishing company Touch, established in 1982...
) - (2005) Cloud with Keith RoweKeith RoweKeith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe's paintings have been featured on most of his own albums...
, Toshimaru NakamuraToshimaru NakamuraToshimaru Nakamura is a Japanese musician, active in free improvisation and Japanese onkyo.He began his career playing rock and roll guitar, but gradually explored other types of music, even abandoning guitar and started working on circuit bending...
and Christian Fennesz (ErstwhileErstwhile RecordsErstwhile Records is an independent record label devoted to free improvisation, particularly the electroacoustic variety. Erstwhile was founded by Jon Abbey in 1999, and his knowledgeable personality and tastes are closely identified with the label.Characteristic label artists include guitarist...
) - (2005) Black OneBlack OneBlack One is the sixth album by Sunn O))). It is a combination of both experimental and traditional Sunn O))), utilizing many guest musicians, including black metal musicians Malefic and Wrest from Xasthur and Leviathan, respectively...
with Sunn O)))Sunn O)))Sunn O))) is an American doom metal band known for its synthesis of diverse genres including drone, ambient, noise, and black metal. Supported by a varying cast of collaborators, the band has two core members: Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson .-History:Sunn O))) is named after the Sunn...
(Southern Lord) - (2006) SquireSquireThe English word squire is a shortened version of the word Esquire, from the Old French , itself derived from the Late Latin , in medieval or Old English a scutifer. The Classical Latin equivalent was , "arms bearer"...
with Keith RoweKeith RoweKeith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe's paintings have been featured on most of his own albums...
(For4Ears Records) - (2000) Stacte Motors (Western VinylWestern VinylWestern Vinyl is an independent record label based in Austin Texas. It was founded in 1998.-Bands and Artists Associated with Western Vinyl:*Anomoanon*Appendix Out*Balmorhea*Bexar Bexar*Botany*Bonnie Prince Billy*Callers*Carter Tanton*Chas. Mtn....
) - (2007) In the Pendulum's EmbraceIn the Pendulum's EmbraceIn the Pendulum's Embrace is an album by the Australian ambient musician Oren Ambarchi. It was released by Touch Music on CD in 2007, and by Southern Lord Records in 2008 on 2LP. It was recorded at BJB Studios in Sydney.-Track listing:...
(TouchTouch MusicTouch is a British audio-visual organisation, operating the Touch label. It is the main arm of the London-based multimedia publishing company Touch, established in 1982...
) - (2007) Grave Temple with Stephen O'Malley and Attila Csihar (Southern Lord RecordsSouthern Lord RecordsSouthern Lord is an American record label that was founded in 1998 by Greg Anderson, specializing in what could broadly be classified as experimental heavy metal, particularly the doom metal, stoner rock, and drone metal sub-genres. Some of the more notable artists on the label include Earth, Om,...
) - (2007) Burial Chamber TrioBurial Chamber Trio (album)Burial Chamber Trio is the debut album by Burial Chamber Trio, which is composed of Greg Anderson, Attila Csihar and Oren Ambarchi. The album was released in 2007 on 180 grm vinyl and limited to 2,000 copies by Southern Lord Records.- External links :**...
with Greg Anderson and Attila Csihar (Southern Lord RecordsSouthern Lord RecordsSouthern Lord is an American record label that was founded in 1998 by Greg Anderson, specializing in what could broadly be classified as experimental heavy metal, particularly the doom metal, stoner rock, and drone metal sub-genres. Some of the more notable artists on the label include Earth, Om,...
) - (2008) Spirit Transform Me with Z'EVZ'EVZ'EV is an American poet, percussionist, and sound artist. After studying various world music traditions at CalArts, he began creating his own percussion sounds out of industrial materials for a variety of record labels...
(TzadikTzadik RecordsTzadik Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in avant-garde and experimental music. The label was established by the eclectic composer and saxophonist John Zorn in 1995; Zorn is the executive producer of all Tzadik releases...
) - (2009) Monoliths & DimensionsMonoliths & DimensionsMonoliths & Dimensions is the seventh studio album by the avant-garde drone doom band Sunn O))). The album was created and recorded over a period of two years and features the collaborations of composer Eyvind Kang, Australian guitar player Oren Ambarchi, Hungarian vocalist Attila Csihar, Dylan...
with Sunn O)))Sunn O)))Sunn O))) is an American doom metal band known for its synthesis of diverse genres including drone, ambient, noise, and black metal. Supported by a varying cast of collaborators, the band has two core members: Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson .-History:Sunn O))) is named after the Sunn...
(Southern Lord) - (2010) Tima Formosa with Jim O'RourkeJim O'Rourke (musician)Jim O'Rourke is an Irish-American musician and record producer. He was long associated with the Chicago experimental and improv scene...
and Keiji HainoKeiji HainoKeiji Haino born May 3, 1952 in Chiba, Japan, and currently residing in Tokyo, is a Japanese musician whose work has included rock, free improvisation, noise, singer-songwriter, solo percussion, psychedelic, minimalism and drone styles...
(Black Truffle) - (2011) In A Flash Everything Comes Together As One There Is No Need For A Subject with Keiji HainoKeiji HainoKeiji Haino born May 3, 1952 in Chiba, Japan, and currently residing in Tokyo, is a Japanese musician whose work has included rock, free improvisation, noise, singer-songwriter, solo percussion, psychedelic, minimalism and drone styles...
and Jim O'RourkeJim O'Rourke (musician)Jim O'Rourke is an Irish-American musician and record producer. He was long associated with the Chicago experimental and improv scene...
(Black Truffle/Medama)
External links
- Oren Ambarchi.com - Official website
- Live at CTM-festival in Berlin