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Black Truffle is pleased to announce a tenth anniversary reissue of Oren Ambarchi’s Quixotism, originally released on Editions Mego in 2014. Recorded with a multitude of collaborators in Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA, Quixotism presents the fruit of two years of work in the form of a single, LP-length piece in five parts. Quixotism takes the driving rhythmic aspect of works such as Sagittarian Domain to new levels, with the entirety of this long-form work built on a foundation of pulsing double-time electronic percussion provided by Thomas Brinkmann. Beginning as almost subliminal propulsion behind cavernous orchestral textures and John Tilbury’s delicate piano interjections, the percussive elements (elaborated on by Ambarchi and Matt Chamberlain) slowly inch into the foreground of the piece before suddenly breaking out into a polyrhythmic shuffle around the halfway mark, and joined by master Japanese tabla player U-zhaan for the piece’s final, beautiful passages.

The pulse acts as thread leading the listener through a heterogeneous variety of acoustic spaces, from the concert hall in which the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra were recorded to the intimacy of crys cole’s contact-mic textures. Ambarchi’s guitar itself ranges over this wide variety of acoustic spaces, from airless, clipped tones to swirling, reverberated fog. Within the complex web Ambarchi spins over the piece’s steadily pulsing foundation, elements approach and recede in a non-linear fashion, even as the piece plots an overall course from the grey, almost Nono-esque reverberated space of its opening section to the crisp foreground presence of Jim O’Rourke’s synth and Evyind Kang’s strings in its final moments. Formally indebted to the side-long workouts of classic Cologne techno, the long-form works of composers such as Éliane Radigue and the organic push and pull of improvised performance, Quixotism is constantly in motion, yet its transitions happen slowly and steadily, often nearly imperceptible, the diverse elements which make up the piece succeeding one another with the logic of a dream.

At the time of its first release, Quixotism was clearly a summation of Ambarchi’s work in the years leading up to it. Now, listening back a decade later, it also seems like an arrow pointing to the future, suggesting paths that would be explored further in works to come: the pulsating guitar layers of Hubris, the album-length collaboration with Jim O’Rourke and U-zhaan on Hence, Shebang’s joyous layering and percussive drive. Now sounding better than ever in a new remaster by Joe Talia, the time is ripe to rediscover its quixotic charms. — (via Label)

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Quixotism is a continuous 47-minute composition that was recorded over the span of two years in several different locations. That idea might sound like a mess, but in the hands of Australian experimental veteran Oren Ambarchi, it turns out beautifully fluid. Quixotism is not exactly a solo effort: it features, among others, Jim O'Rourke, Thomas Brinkmann, an Icelandic orchestra and the Japanese tabla player U-zhaan. These disparate collaborators and separate sessions are so carefully woven together by Ambarchi that Quixotism sounds like one recording, which may be the record's most impressive quality. 

The first four movements of Quixotism are quietly hesitant. The 14-minute closer, on the other hand, is pure payoff, sliding into the lush meditative embrace of U-zhaan's tabla and Eyvind Kang's violas. Coming after the spartan hinterlands of part four, it's almost comforting. For an artist who has traditionally experimented with recording methods, Quixotism is another landmark, thanks largely to how natural it sounds in spite of its ambitious approach. — (via Resident Advisor)

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- 10th Anniversary remastered edition
- Includes digital download

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Label: Black Truffle
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Remastered
Reissued: 2024 / Originally Released: 2014
Genre: Electronic, Classical
Style: Ambient, Experimental, Avantgarde, Minimal, Contemporary

File under: Ambient / Experimental / IDM
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