Oren Ambarchi

• DIGIPACK EDITION

• 4 STARS ALL MUSIC GUIDE

Recorded in a single inspired studio session, Sagittarian Domain displaces Ambarchi’s trademark guitar sound from the centre of the mix, its presence felt only as an occasional ghostly reverberated shimmer. Endlessly pulsating guitar and bass lines sit alongside electronic percussion and thundering motorik drumming (familiar from his work with Keiji Haino) at the core of the piece, locking into a voodoo groove like Faust covering a 70’s cop show theme.

The work is founded on hypnotic almost-repetition, the accents of the drum hits and interlocking bass and guitar lines shifting almost imperceptibly back and forwards over the beat as they undergo gradual transformations of timbre. Cut-up and phase-shifted strings enter around the half-way mark like an abstracted memory of the eastern-tinged fusion of the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s classic Visions of the Emerald Beyond, before returning for an extended, stark yet affecting come-down coda, equal parts Gavin Bryars and Purple Rain.

PERSONNEL:

• Oren Ambarchi - (guitars, moog bass, drums, percussion, voice)

• PLUS:
• Elizabeth Welsh - (violin)
• James Rushford - (viola)
• Judith Hamann - (cello)

Recorded by Lachlan Carrick at Sing Sing, Melbourne May 26, 2011

TRACKS:

• 01. Sagittarian Domain ....... 33:35