oren ambarchi: quixotism

Editions Mego presents the vinyl edition of Oren Ambarchi's Quixotism, a five-part piece recorded over two years with a multitude of collaborators in Europe, Japan, Australia, and the USA and released on CD in 2014. Furthuring Ambarchi's interest in combining abstract sonic textures with rhythm and pulse (apparent in his drumming with Keiji Haino, the subtly driving ride cymbals of collaborator Joe Talia, and the motorik grooves of 2012's Sagittarian Domain), Quixotism's 47 minutes rest on Thomas Brinkmann's foundation of pulsing electronic percussion. Beginning as almost subliminal propulsion behind cavernous orchestral textures and John Tilbury's delicate piano interjections, the percussive elements (elaborated on by Ambarchi and Matt Chamberlain) slowly inch into the foreground of the piece before suddenly breaking out into a polyrhythmic shuffle around the halfway mark, joined by tabla master U-zhaan for the piece's final, beautiful passages. The pulse acts as a thread leading the listener though a heterogeneous variety of acoustic spaces, from the concert hall in which the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra were recorded to the intimacy of Crys Cole's contact mic textures. Ambarchi's guitar itself ranges over this wide variety of acoustic spaces, from airless, clipped tones to swirling, reverberated fog. Within the complex web Ambarchi spins over the piece's steadily pulsing foundation, elements approach and recede, appear and reappear in a non-linear fashion, even as the piece plots an overall course from the gray, almost Nono-esque reverberated space of its opening section to the crisp foreground presence of Jim O'Rourke's synth and Evyind Kang's strings in its final moments. Formally indebted to the side-long workouts of classic Cologne techno, the long-form works of composers such as Eliane Radigue, and the organic push and pull of improvised performance, Quixotism, in a kind of dream-logic, moves with nearly imperceptible transitions through its sonic diversity. Though it is shaped by its many contributors, the resulting sound world is unmistakably Ambarchi's own, and the summation of his career thus far. Played by Oren Ambarchi (guitars and percussion), Thomas Brinkmann (computable drums with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem), Matt Chamberlain (drums and electronics, Parts 3 & 4), Crys Cole (contact mics and brushes, Part 4), Eyvind Kang (bowed gender, Part 1 and violas, Part 5), Jim O'Rourke (synths, Parts 4 and 5), John Tilbury (piano, Parts 1 & 2), U-zhaan (tabla, Part 5), and Ilan Volkov & the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra (Parts 1 & 3). Recorded at Max Ernst Studios, Cologne; Harpa, Reykjavik; Cyclops Sound Studio, Los Angeles; Avast! Studios, Seattle, with co-production and engineering by Randall Dunn; Steamroom, Tokyo, with engineering by Jim O'Rourke; London; and Melbourne in 2012, '13, and '14. Mixed by Ambarchi and Joe Talia at Chinatown, Melbourne in December 2013 and March 2014. Mastered by Byron Scullin at Moose, Melbourne in March and April 2014. Cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin in June 2014.