Suspension
Oren Ambarchi is a Sydney-based musician with a longstanding interest in transcending conventional instrumental approaches. He has worked with artists as diverse as Keith Rowe, Christian Fennesz, Sachiko M and Phill Niblock. Suspension is Ambarchi’s second release for Touch, after Insulation [Touch # T33.16, 1999]. Although continuing his explorations of the guitar, Oren has almost completely discarded the deconstructed, fragmentary approach to composition that he employed on 1999’s excellent Insulation. This disc is more akin to his remarkable Stacte series of LPs (treasure them if you have them, for they are all but gone), where compositions have the exploratory freedom, spontaneity and fluidity of improvised music, yet contain the determination, discipline and solidity of composers such as Alvin Lucier (of whom Ambarchi is an open admirer). As the title suggests, the listener is suspended in dense tonal fields or complete silence; adrift, never touching the bottom, never reaching the surface but continually held in the realm of the instant. Movement and flux contend with stasis and rigidity. Sounds continually unravel and solidify. These works are endless, eternal, never opting for obvious resolutions or easy destinations. Often beginning in abstraction, seemingly random and irregular pulses and tones coalesce and converge. All elements are part of a greater logic, which reveals itself through intense, immersive and repeated listenings. Suspension is Ambarchi’s most total and completely realised effort to date. (2001)