AMBARCHI, OREN - Destinationless Desire

Format: 7"

Label & Cat.Number: Touch Seven TS 05

Release Year: 2008

Note: full-colour cover, lim. 500

Price (incl. 19% VAT): €7.50

More Info

"Electric guitars, organ, samples, bells, percussion and motorised cymbal recorded at BJB Studios, Sydney with additional overdubs made at home 2005-2007. Gratitude to Fairport Convention and Boris D Hegenbart. This is the 5th in the series of Touch Sevens - 7 vinyl only releases. 7 vinyl was the quintessential format for popular music. Today, it is an undervalued and mostly promotional medium, used as a fetishistic signpost to a time of musical authenticity and a healthy popular culture. It might seem like another retrograde step to launch a vinyl series just as the download format threatens to dominate, and indeed there is an element of the rear view mirror... the generation of Touch artists who grew up with vinyl [and cassette] still feeling a strong emotional attachment to it. This series is more than that... an overtly critical, non-digital statement is supported by treatments of audio work which cannot be applied to digital formats - the sonic texture, the use of a locked groove, the A & the B and the additional dimension of the visual counterpoint. As for the aspect of audience participation, we choose not to specify the RPM on the label, encouraging the listener to experiment with playback options and personal preferences. An attempt to make music that works at both speeds. The front cover might actually be the back cover..." [label info]

"...Using electric guitars, organ, bells, samples, percussion and motorized cymbal (!), Ambarchi has created to dramatically different
pieces. The A side is a woozy, washed out underwater sounding loopscape, peppered with record crackle (unless that’s coming from
the record player, either way, it sounds great!), like a slightly jauntier, less melancholy Oval, major key melody, all softly sunshine- y, a dreamily hypnotic stretch of soft swirl that could go on forever.
The B side is much darker, long streaks of shimmery low end beneath haunting slowed down vocals, mournful and mysterious, the
vocals and the guitar drift and shift, all wound up in and around each other, throughout, bits of electronic glitchery, smears of muted
buzz, snippets of conversation and dialogue, but all that stuff seems to be woven into an undulating backdrop for Ambarchi’s ghostlike
disembodied blues.
As always, packaged in super striking thick matte sleeve with gorgeous photos and layout from Touch head honcho Jon Wozencroft." [Aquarius Records review]

www.touchmusic.org.uk