thirteen

97-105


Mitchell Akiyama - Small Explosions That Are Yours to Keep (Sub Rosa) 2005

Canadian label boss of Intr_version records, Akiyama's previous output under his own name and as Desormais w/ Tony Boggs tended towards either minimal electronics or fractured dub excursions not unlike Pole or Deadbeat. On this more recent recording, and follow-up to If Night is a Weed and Day Grows Less also on Sub Rosa, he returns to his roots in classical composition, primarily for piano. The played pieces, that also include acoustic guitar, gamelan and other instruments, are then subjected to drastic in-computer edits that reconfigure a music that no human could play live... though it is still imbued with the warmth of live performance. This is a realm of composition that is young, but adopted by more artists each year.
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Akufen - My Way (Force-Inc) 2002

Akufen is Marc LeClair from Montreal... and Force-Inc was a sub-imprint of the German label Mille Plateaux that specialized in their less-dance/more-experimental artists. My Way was a watershed of ideas about music construction, using minute (that is to say really tiny) moments of pre-existing music stolen off the radio and other sources and reconstructing, bar by bar and note by note, a new original music from the debris. The end result is the audio equivalent of watching/dancing to a strobe light... probably also not good for epileptics.
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Alog - Red Shift Swing (Rune Grammofon) 1999

Many of the artists on this Norwegian label blur the line between Jazz, Electronic and Folk music by employing elements of all three. Alog are a duo from Tromsø, a small town above the Arctic Circle that seems to breed avant-garde musicians. They use reed and string instruments to start with then alter and embelish with electronics to create loop-based compositions that have a relaxed and, again, human warmth.
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Amalgamated Sons of Rest - S/T (Galaxia) 2002

If you are a fan of Will Oldham (Palace, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy), Jason Molina (Songs:Ohia, Magnolia Electric Company) or Alasdair Roberts (Appendix Out) then this is your horn of plenty. Either through a mutual admiration or the fact that people endlessly compare their musical and/or vocal styles the trio got together to make this 6 track e.p. of seafaring songs. Much like the more recent Swan Lake project that featured the vocalists from Destroyer, Wolf Parade and Frog Eyes, there is an overall instrumental consistency here, but there is little doubt (if you are a fan) whose song is whose. Oldham, as usual is the most adaptable and falls easily into the shanty mode, while for Roberts, who regularly adapts traditional material, this is really just a walk in the park... er, the waterpark that is.
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Oren Ambarchi - Grapes from the Estate (Touch) 2004


Oren Ambarchi - Triste (Southern Lord) 2005


Ambarchi/Avenaim - Clockwork (Room40) 2006


Ambarchi/Berthling - My days are darker than your nights (Hapna) 2003


Ambarchi/Muller/Samartzis - Strange Love (For4Ears) 2003

Oren Ambarchi is an Australian guitarist/electronics artist that bridges a lot of musical gaps. Besides his solo recordings and collaborations listed above he has also toured as a member of the drone-metal behemoth that is Sunn O))). He is lumped in with other guitar-via-laptop performers such as Fennesz and Keith Fullerton Whitman, but Ambarchi is much less interested in filling up the sound field with digital snow, preferring a much more minimal approach to things. Both Grapes from the Estate and Triste feature mostly slow evolving tones derived from plucked strings that are intensified and shifted to end up as something approximately like a music box played through a forest of Marshall amps. In his collaborative works this signature sound is quashed and a more subtle and transparent approach is adopted... as on the short album with Johan Berthling that features a single thirty minute piece that channels guitar loops and harmonium into a diaphanous drone. Or with Gunter Muller and Phillip Samartzis where their live and studio interplay consists of minimalist frequency adjustments initiated and followed by all three. One gets the sense that Ambarchi still has a lot of ground he can break and explore. This is what I said about the Ambarchi/Avenaim disc for Exclaim!:

These Australian compatriots have been linked in music and noise since the mid-’90s. Their collaboration began with the noise/punk group Phlegm, who took their influence from the Japanese noise of the time. Their Jewish orthodoxy was imported resulting in a duo recording for the Tzadik label in 1999. Clockwork was initially released that same year on Ambarchi’s own Jerker label, but as with many self-releases it vanished under the sands of time. Hearing it now provides an essential puzzle piece to link the chaos of their roots to the more austere minimalism of Ambarchi’s recent solo work, as well as the duo’s collaborations with Keith Rowe and Sachiko M. The piece features a guitar attack that is subtly amplified but extremely kinetic and varied in tonality. Avenaim’s percussion is likewise frenetic but feathery. After an initial time of tentative sorties the duos’ clipped skitterings lock together with Ambarchi’s guitar taking on gamelan orchestra overtones and Avenaim unleashing a small infantry of grasshoppers with heavy footwear across his toms and snare. Played for contemplation rather than shock, the piece resolves quickly and cleanly like the sound of a book’s page turning.