Orem Ambarchi - Suspension
(TOUCH)
Tim Hecker - Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again
(Substractif)
Process, or where one's process begins, can be a powerful statement in electronic music making. From Markus Popp's painting on the surfaces of CDs to discover a world defined by glitches and errors, to Pan Sonic's homemade synthesizers that reek havoc on eardrums everywhere, the validity of the music can at times be held up by the process that defines it. It's easy to whole heartedly disregard music who's sole origin is the computer and the hand behind it. Action, or played instruments, carry with them a sense of personality, and more importantly, a sense of will. It's not surprising that a good number of electronic musicians have of late began to reinvestigate the instruments they may have previously set aside for the computer. Finding a powerful relationship with the instrument they play and the software that redefines it.
Oren Ambarchi is such a musician. He's been involved with the Sydney music scene since the early 90s when his output was focused on drumming in Noise/Punk bands, a far cay from his recent work on Touch, Suspension, an LP whose title really does say it all. Composed entirely of guitar improvisations, Suspension shows Ambarchi honing in on the warmer elements of the instrument. His treatment of the guitar sounds not unlike a Fender Rhodes at times, creating melodies that seem to hover in space. The majority of the pieces are slowly turning narratives, repeating patterns that resemble locked grooves at times, but lacking any type of constrained structure, allowing for abstract patterns to slowly form and fall away. Ambarchi has successful tapped in to the sprit of the late period work of Morton Feldman, as well as Lamont Young, creating a record that sounds simultaneously familiar and like nothing you have heard before.
Tim Hecker takes a similar approach on this, his first LP under his own name. Although he has recorded extensively under the moniker Jetone, exploring the outer limits of the 4/4 beat, Hecker leaves the drum machines behind and uses his computer to fondle among other things an acoustic guitar and a piano. The outcome is a bit shaky, but definitely not without merit. Unlike Ambrachi, Hecker has yet to develop a strong autonomous language, and at times the outcome is more referential than original. At other times this LP moves gracefully between mesmerizing ambient spaces and digital obliteration. Small portions of an instrument will be shown, surrounded it in a thick fuzz of digital noise. Melodies stutter along, trying desperately to break the surface, but are held still in freeze frame, as on the beautiful "The Work of Art in the Age of Over Production." Over production should be at the top of Hecker's list, or maybe method of production, as it's the one weak point of an otherwise lovely record.
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