Oren Ambarchi | |
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 Ambarchi at Punktfestivalen 2025 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 1969 (age 55–56) Sydney, Australia |
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| Years active | 1986–current |
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| Website | orenambarchi.com |
Oren Ambarchi (born 1969) is an Australian musician. He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays mainly electric guitar and percussion. [1]
Oren Ambarchi was born in Sydney to an Iraqi Jewish family. [1] Ambarchi has been performing live since 1986. In the late 1980s he played free jazz in Sydney, originally as a drummer. [2] In an interview with ABC Radio broadcaster, Jon Rose, Ambarchi described how he started playing guitar:
There happened to be one laying around in our rehearsal room. I picked it up and starting hitting it with drumsticks and using it in whatever way I wanted to use it in, and one thing led to another. I'm glad I wasn't trained. I've always loved rock music, I grew up listening to pop and rock, so that was in my mind, but I've also been interested in electronics. I never wanted to learn to play it properly, it was an object as much as an instrument. [2]
His work focuses mainly on the exploration of the guitar, though he also plays drums and percussion in some of his live performances.
Along with longtime collaborator, drummer Robbie Avenaim, he co-organised the 'What Is Music' Festival in various cities in Australia from 1994 to 2005. [3]
Ambarchi contributed to drone metal band Sunn O)))'s Black One album in 2005, and became a regular live performer with the band for the next several years, as well as contributing to the Oracle EP and Monoliths & Dimensions album. [4]
In 2009 Ambarchi begins a series of trio performances in Japan with multi-instrumentalist Jim O'Rourke and iconic Japanese musician/singer Keiji Haino. This meeting was recorded and released in 2010 under the title 'Tima Formosa' on Black Truffle records. This trio collaboration continues annually at the renowned Tokyo venue Super Deluxe. Each concert is documented and released on Ambarchi's Black Truffle label. the first one being the acclaimed 'Indeed' in 2011. [5]
In 2017 he began working with American composer Alvin Lucier, performing new compositions for electric guitar. [6]
Ambarchi has run the record label Black Truffle since 2009.
With Jim O'Rourke, Ambarchi has released three collaborative studio albums: Indeed (2011), [7] Behold (2015), [8] and Hence (2018). [9]
He also released solo albums Sagittarian Domain (2012), Quixotism (2014), Hubris (2016), and Simian Angel (2019), through Editions Mego. [10] He released Shebang (2022) through Drag City. [11]
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