In our KLOF series (No. 17), we led with ‘I’, the opener to Ghosted (April 2022), a collaboration between Oren Ambarchi, Johan Berthling and Andreas Werliin. It was an impressive album that clearly resonated as I followed with another track (IV) in the Lost in Transmission series (No. 86), snuggled in between Japan’s Kikagaku Moyo/幾何学模様 and Makaya McCraven.
Ambarchi is not an easy musician to define. His influences are vast, from free jazz to noise rock, he went from playing the drums to falling in love with the guitar after watching Japan’s Keiji Hano play (he would later form a trio with Hano and Jim O’Rourke). He also founded Australia’s alternative music festival ‘What is Music?’ with Robbie Avenaim in 1994, a festival that significantly raised the profile of experimental music in Australia.
In a swift follow up to April’s Ghosted, Ambarchi has announced a new album. While sailing as a solo release via Drag City (30 September), there are a number of guest musicians that dip into Shebang. He is reunited once more with Johan Berthling on one track, while his old pal Jim O’Rourke makes it on two, as does Sam Dunscombe, Julia Reidy and BJ Cole’s pedal steel (which you can hear on the new single below), while Joe Talia sticks to the drums for the whole shebang.
The first single, “I”, charted the assembling shapes: Oren’s staccato tones, with subtle Leslie shimmers and guitar synth, joined in the flow by Joe Talia’s ride cymbal articulations.
The new single, “II”, picks up where “I” left off, as the elements blossom into a rigorously snapped-to fusion funk, with ever-shifting details skittering across the stereo spectrum. This sets the stage for legendary British pedal steel player B.J. Cole, whose languorous, lonely lines drift in and out of the evolving rhythm landscape.
For the music video, Oren enlisted director Andrew Lambert, who’s devised an artful twilight zone-esque parade of stuttering cars, spinning adrift. In this vision, Shebang is on the radio, its future sounds providing rainbow colour for cascading black & white images. Music is an out-of-body experience capable of transporting you anywhere, so why not pass a little time in 1930s St. Louis, MO?
Funneled into a single note, Shebang enters pt II with the entrance of Joe Talia’s ride cymbal, forming a crispy lattice of minimal funk, a tension expounded upon by Sam Dunscombe’s bass clarinet and the pedal steel of UK cult legend BJ Cole. Ambarchi stokes the rhythm and roams the skies, his guitar triggering expansive dimensions of sound.
Shebang is out on 30 September 2022
Pre-Order: Drag City | Bandcamp