Bleep

Undoubtedly, it’s the live setting in which the pieces of Australian experimentalist Oren Ambarchi unfold their full immersive potential. Luckily, some very talented sound engineers have all of us in mind that cannot physically attend his mostly one-off performances, or that simply want to relive them over and over again, and following ‘Live Knots’ on PAN, Sleepwalkers Conviction is the latest documentation of one of said happenings. Again beautifully mastered by Rashad Becker, the recording arrives by courtesy of one of his old label homes, Black Truffle, and chronicles his performance of ‘New work for guitar and ensemble', premiered at the Adelaide Festival in South Australia at the beginning of 2014. The set-up already gives away the essentials about the nature of the 40-minute piece: performed as a collaboration with a 20-person ensemble conducted by Ilan Volkov and featuring members of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Speak Percussion, it takes on overwhelming dimensions as its double basses, horns, and percussion instruments erupt in foreboding drones. It’s another compelling example of Ambarchi re-appropriating percussive elements in a rather textural function without taking anything away from their rhythmic qualities.