At the end of 2007 the British Label Touch started a new series of 7" releases as much as a protest to the ease of digital downloading as a statement of art of the analogue. After really lovely 7" releases by Fennesz, Chris Watson and the split of Fennesz and Philip Jeck reworking the organ works by Charles Matthews it's now turn for another one of those renowned musicians of the touch label: Oren Ambarchi.
The past few years Oren Ambarchi has been quite productive with releasing an album a year and mostly also one or two EP's, either solo or in collaboration with others. And this year is going to look exactly the same. Besides a full length album with Ze'v there is also the 7" Destinationless Desire.
This 7" is a tricky one, because since I own this I have been playing it various times at both 33 rpm and 45 rpm. The touch website says people should choose the speed what they find to be the best. I guess most people will choose for 45 rpm (as I do) but playing it at 33 gives the same duration of the tracks as is mentioned on the 7" label. So what it should be might stay a mystery.
The mystery does not only stay with this playback speed, also the sleeve leaves enough questions. The front cover, as I see it (the one use here) shows a very descent classical dining room. But as descent as it looks, as creepy it is to me. Where are the plates, where is the silverware? The scenery brings to mind the movie The Shinning by Stanley Kubrick, or maybe a David Lynch setting. Yes, it is creepy to me.
On the music side it's less mysterious, though Oren Ambarchi really knows to surprise us here with the music on here. Where on the last few releases the pieces by Ambarchi were long (almost nothing below 15 minutes of length) here of course we find two short tracks.
Side A is called Highway of Diamonds and starts out with rhythmic glitches that could be samples of an old scratched vinyl record. Through this a slowly changing reworked guitar loop is running and swelling up. The sound leaves me really warm, but halfway everything changes. All of a sudden a harmonic organ drone is started which shows slight dissonance. The unsettling feeling I got from the artwork comes back to me. It's gorgeous but haunting. Somewhere there is a summer feeling to this, but at the same time it sounds slightly cold. A great track.
Side B is called Bleeding Shadow and here probably the biggest surprise comes up: vocals!
Never before I had heard so clear vocals in the music of Oren Ambarchi, if they even ever where there. On the sleeve he pays gratitude to Fairport Convention. This might be the band the vocals come from, though of course nothing is sure ever in this part of the music scene. These vocals are combined with stripped down guitar sounds that are so familiar to the music of Oren Ambarchi, bells, percussion and loads of weird sounds. In comparison with other music, like grapes of the estate or the whole stacte series this track is much more organic which is result of these vocals. Nonetheless it's an amazing tune and it might be an element he should try working with some more. It adds to the already great diversity in the music by Oren Ambarchi.
Very well done.
Again Touch shows that they still have a keen eye on music. With this fourth instalment (fifth according to the sleeve, but the fourth hasn't been released yet) in this new 7" series they prove to have found another amazing idea for releases. And I hope, like with the previous three releases that the future ones will be as good and pleasant to listen to as this one.
Destinationless Desire shows the diversity of a great musician and is a recommended release in a lovely format. |
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