Music from Australia

Lawrence English is media artist, composer and critic based in Brisbane, Australia. It's Up To Us To Live has seen a prolonged birth. It's commencement in 2004 began around the same moments as the final touches were being put to the album Happiness Will Befall (issued originally by Cronica). In some ways these two records pair one another - they form a spiraling coil of echo location and feedback. Whereas 'Happiness...' might be considered a lush and evocatively melodic affair, It's Up To Us To …

They play here a variety of unnamed instruments, analogue and electronic, which they recorded in the studio and some of it re-recorded using spatial qualities of other places and together makes a very warm release of ambient music. Brian Eno is mentioned (think the ambiance, think the locations in the vein of ÔOn Land') of course, but the world of ambient glitch should not be forgotten as well. Beautiful slow transforming sounds, spacious and spatial, sometimes with a touch of darkness, but very…

Originally released in 2000 as a limited vinyl only album, 'Persona' is now available on CD for the first time. Persona' was recorded in February 2000, just a week after the 'Afternoon Tea' collaboration with Fennesz, Pimmon, Pita and Keith Rowe. Utilizing a raw and spontaneous approach like the 'Stacte' series of solo releases, Ambarchi recorded the pieces on 'Persona' at home in a day, only using his guitar, a handful of effect pedals and a boombox as a monitor (!). Considered to be a 'sister'…

Originally released in 2000 as a limited vinyl only album (on Plate Lunch), 'Stacte.3' is now available on CD for the first time. Described by Wire scribe Jon Dale as Alvin Lucier and Cluster collaborating for Mego, the concept of Oren Ambarchi's 'Stacte' LP series - now comprising of five volumes - began in 1998. The first few 'Stacte' LPs were self-released by Ambarchi and featured his earliest explorations of the guitar and its sonic possibilities after a period known as a drummer in post-pun…

Oren Ambarchi continues his otherworldly investigations with 'In The Pendulum's Embrace', a dark twin to his landmark 2004 album 'Grapes From The Estate' [Touch # TO:61]. Returning again to the hallowed halls of BJB Studios in Sydney, Ambarchi expands the scope and range of his unique musical language, incorporating an even broader pallette of instrumentsand sensibilities. Despite the use of glass harmonica, strings, bells, piano, percussion and guitars, it's startling that the world created is …

Another ridiculously limited LPs from Table of the Elements celebrating not only their 15th anniversary but also the humble guitar itself. This time we have a one sided, etched blue slab of wax from the unshakable Oren Ambarchi, a man whose name has become synonymous with quality electronic production. In recent years he has been seen next to Stephen O'Malley and the Southern Lord lot, but here we find him back to doing what he does so well - a gorgeous long-form guitar drone piece taking in all…

Tujiko Noriko joins with collaborators Lawrence English and John Chantler for ‘U’, a record of orbiting themes, esoteric lyrical wordplays and warm analog-infused song-forms. Following on from the acclaimed ‘Blurred In My Mirror (ROOM40), ‘U’ is a record of phases and exchanges between Paris and Brisbane over a three year period. A record of extended technique and unconventional process, U is most of all a swelling passage through the rare and exotic reality Tujiko Noriko evokes through her curi…

Everything else SPK did was either industrial grind or fluffy dance-pop. Zamia Lehmanni lies along the axis of Graeme Revell's other solo projects (see below) and is gorgeous throughout. Its cover is red, gold, and black and the liner notes quote decadent poets in the original French along with a description of copper-colored blossoms from "Against Nature." by J. K Huysmans. You can see the dew on the leaves in a garden enclosed by mold-covered stone walls. The music is urgent gamelan with sampl…

after being hidden in time for about 25 years this industrial milestone of the infamous 1st generation got renovated extended and digitally overworked by CaTV. Cathy Vogan - Media Artist & Designer has been three times nominated for Video Art Award and received ZKM (Karlsuhe) Production Award for her work! Check it out here: http://vogania.com/VOGANIA.html . A true statement and monument for the outstanding band S.P.K. who gathered together under so many names like: SoliPsiK, Selektiv Pornograph…

Oren Ambarchi presents Destinationless Desire: electric guitars, organ, samples, bells, percussion and motorized cymbals recorded at BJB Studios, Sydney with additional overdubs made at home in 2005-2007. Gratitude to Fairport Convention and Boris D Hegenbart.

Contains earliest Tracks from 77-81 plus Tracks from the Terse-Releases Earbidden, Clean, the long lost Side 3-Tape, Blubberknife,Cheesecake and various other tracks from 83-85. To subscibe this treaure it is best to state what Tom Ellard had to say: "And here we have it - the ultimate produce of the new millennium. A box of vinyl discs with music from as much as thirty years ago. Could something express any less faith in the future? My guess is that we seek to capture some 'purity' that has sin…

Released autumn 2007. 300 copies (first edition), 200 copies (second edition). Piano music by Ambarchi and Marhaug. Recorded Oslo november 2006. Reviews: October 2007 release; a pair of 'piano music' pieces, acting as the debut collaborative single from two of contemporary experimental music's most prolific/consistently rewarding practitioners; oren ambarchi and lasse marhaug... those of you expecting something on par with maurizio pollini's reading of satie's gnossiennes might be a little shock…

The turntable has enjoyed a varied history in the realm of performance and experimental music. From the early phonographic works of John Cage to the spliced cut-ups of Christian Marclay in the 1980s, the device has proven to be a versatile tool for the creation and transformation of sound. Following a joint billing at Brisbane’s Metro Arts Space in 2002, Melbourne based composer Philip Samartzis and sound artist Lawrence English shared a 30-minute performance that was to become the beginning of …

Textile is proud to announce the fourth installment in its split 12" series, oren ambarchi / hado ho. oren ambarchi is an electronic guitarist and percussionist with longstanding interests in transcending conventional instrumental approaches. Born in sydney in 1969, he has been performing live since 1986. his recent solo releases triste (southern lord - usa), and grape from the estate (touch uk) have transcended the guitar into a zone of alien beauty and sonic impossibilities to critical acclaim…

Its initial release - an edition of 100 3CD-Rs on Ambarchi's Jerker Productions label back in 1999 - let it slide by just enough aesthetic radars to register among cognoscenti. Coupled with Ambarchi's solo work from the era, the recording marked a shift from the gonzo-rock of the duo's previous band, Phlegm. Things happen throughout Clockwork that had never really happened before. Recorded in front of a live audience for that 'what we did on our holidays' feel, Avenaim and Ambarchi unravel their…

Oren Ambarchi (el.guitar) & Keith Rowe (tabletop el.guitar). 'Archival recording of this duo's opening set, recorded live at The Loft in Cologne on March 3, 2002. Lovingly recorded with attention to detail, this release beautifully captures the two guitarists creating their own sonic universe in real-time. Gorgeous audial density to utterly submerge yourself in.

“Pure drone bliss on offer here from the prolific Australian guitar experimentalist Oren Ambarchi (whom you may already know) and Swedish musician Johan Berthling (a less familiar name -- he's brother to Andreas Berthling,and with him a member of the field recordings group Tape, who are also to be found on Hapna). These two got together in a studio in Stockholm last year with the intent to drone, and drone they did, Ambarchi on electric guitar and Berthling playing the harmonium. They recorded w…

Released in DVD case size super jewel box. Structures with monochromes on reports of the Golden Number 1,618033989. Recorded July 23, 2002 at Big Jesus Burger, Sydney.Mixed and mastered October/November 2002.

These pieces continue the Stacte series started in 1998 with ambarchi's first self-released solo recordings. Similar to the 4 previous editions of the series, which explored one idea at length, Stacte Motors is an experiment in exciting instruments with a spinning motor with strings attached. The resulting recordings are metallic walls of minimalist drones, both fearless and dreamy. Produced and recorded at BJB studios in Australia, these one-take acoustic recordings have a very tactile and phys…

Oren Ambarchi acts as a good antithesis to that other great Touch luminary - Fennesz.Both artists use the guitar as a starting point for minimalist discovery and post-abstract innovation, though where Fennesz relies heavily on distortion and catharsis, Ambarchi's focus is on a much more refined, clean building of layers and delicate augmentations. For his third outing on Touch, Ambarchi's immense achievement is through his sense of timing, pace and definition - slowly building pieces up to warm,…