Shebang cover

Shebang

Released

Oren Ambarchi is our poet of evenness. The bible of this was and is Hubris (2016), a massive work that, like another composition of his, Knots, has various iterations. On Shebang, Ambarchi begins with guitar but conceives like a drummer, which he is. He is joined by a dozen or so players, building out from hammered guitar figures that reproduce the dynamic flatline of an electric fan hitting a pencil. Ambarchi introduces variation by adding instruments and shifting tonality while keeping a fixed level of attack for each instrument. It’s a play on minimalism, with more chaos in the arrangement than you’d get from Reich and more machine-like drive than you hear in an Eastman score.

Sasha Frere-Jones

Recommended by

Suggestions
Pancrace cover

Pancrace

Pancrace
What?? cover

What??

Folke Rabe
Järnnätter cover

Järnnätter

Civilistjävel!
Mythologies cover

Mythologies

Masaya Ozaki, Kaito Nakahori
Skærgårdslyd cover

Skærgårdslyd

Astrid Øster Mortensen
Orange cover

Orange

CS + Kreme
Behold cover

Behold

Oren Ambarchi, Jim O'Rourke