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Sacrum Profanum 2023

Oren Ambarchi at the Sacrum Profanum’s Discomfort Zone

2017-08-24

The Australian composer and multi-instrumentalist will perform twice at the upcoming edition of Sacrum Profanum. The Krakow audience will hear him during “Drone” (28 September) and “Romanian Spectralism” (30 September) concerts. We join forces with Łukasz Komła from the NowaMuzyka.pl and the The Płyty (nie)słuchane blog to present the artist’s profile.

Sacrum Profanum 2017: Oren Ambarchi (Łukasz Komła)

Baroque had its multitalented prodigy in Mozart.If we were to shift this paradigm to the present day, Oren Ambarchi – Australian composer and multi-instrumentalist with a particular fondness for guitar and percussion – would certainly meet the criteria.

Born in Sydney in 1969 to a Jewish Iraqi family, Ambarchistarted performing as a seventeen-year-old percussionist.During rehearsals, he discovered he had a knack for the electric guitar, turning it into his very own percussion instrument by hitting the strings with drumsticks and his hands.He stresses his delight with having received no formal music education, leaving him free of its boundaries and limitations.He is heavily influenced by the rock music of his youth and by his later encounters with electronica, minimalism and many other avant-garde music genres.In his early days he was especially fascinated by the works of Morton Feldman and Alvin Lucier.

The Australian artist took his first steps in noise alongside Robbie Avenaim with the project “Phlegm”.The pair also collaborated for ten years on organising the What Is Music Festival.Ambarchi has never limited himself to a single path and he has always been actively involved with many different projects.He soon attracted the interest of the British label Touch, which launched his album “Insulation” in 1999 followed by several others.The artist has been working with the acclaimed label ever since.Around the same time he also started recording with Christian Fennesz, Peter Rehberg (founder of Editions Mego), Keith Rowe and Paul Gough; the musicians released their joint album “Afternoon Tea” in 2000.Ambarchi attained his first major solo success in 2003, when he received the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica award for “Triste”.The following year marked another important milestone with the start of the collaboration with the American experimental metal band Sunn O))), spanning several years.

Looking back at Ambarchi’s body of work from the perspective of three decades (he has been performing regularly since 1986), it would be nigh on impossible to list all the artists he has worked with on stage and in the studio,although Johan Berthling, acclaimed bassist working with Fire! Orchestra and Angles, surely deserves a mention.Their first joint material was “My Days Are Darker Than Your Nights”. In 2015, after a twelve-year break, the musicians released their second album “Tongue Tied”.Ambarchi’s electrifying collaborations with artists such as Otomo Yoshihide, Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke, Toshimaru Nakamura, Phill Niblock, Merzbow, Richard Pinhas, Thomas Brinkmann, Robin Fox, James Rushford and Joe Talia mark a significant chapter in the history of contemporary experimental and improvised music.

The solo album “Hubris”, released in 2016, is a perfect summary of the vast body of Ambarchi’s work, as well as a worthy marker of the beginning of a new era. It features guest artists working in different genres and styles, including Arto Lindsay, Jim O’Rourke, Ricardo Villalobos, Keith Fullerton Whitman and Will Guthrie, coming together to form a psychedelic krautrock orchestra.The album explores the concepts of time, space and discipline in rhythm while breaking down conventional standards and converting them into motion, progression and coexistence in time and space.

Łukasz Komła

28.09.2017

Drone

21.00

Concert

Museum of Municipal Engineering

Tickets

Drone

40 zł

non-numbered seats

Buy a ticket

Passes

All days pass: Sacrum Profanum 2020

Pass

150 PLN

It does not include the performance of Purification and the Esoteric Chords and ~ maturity.

Buy a festival pass
30.09.2017

Romanian Spectralism

20.00

Concert

Łaźnia Nowa Theatre

Tickets

Romanian Spectralism

40 zł

non-numbered seats

Buy a ticket

Passes

All days pass: Sacrum Profanum 2020

Pass

150 PLN

It does not include the performance of Purification and the Esoteric Chords and ~ maturity.

Buy a festival pass