Oren Ambarchi, Konrad Sprenger, Phillip Sollmann - Panama / Suez

  • Efdemin co-produces a psychedelic EP that dazzles with subtle repetition.
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  • A lot draws Oren Ambarchi, Konrad Sprenger (AKA Jörg Hiller) and Phillip Sollmann (AKA Efdemin) together. Alongside from their esoteric approaches to music, their work intersects in a few ways. Ambarchi and Hiller have released on the PAN label. Sollmann hasn't, but he has produced a concert series inspired by Harry Partch, an outsider composer who also made his own instruments. Hiller does that, too. All three artists meet at the blurred borders of acoustic and electronic production. Their collaboration is out on A-TON, one of two Ostgut Ton sub-labels that branch out into ambient, archival and experimental music. Panama / Suez refers to two cities on either side of the Atlantic Ocean, both famous for their own artificial canals. The music resembles this delicate burrowing and cross-continental connection. "Panama" runs on 15 minutes of vacillating rhythms that swell and contract. An unrelenting techno rhythm moves so consistently that the discrete changes, which grow over time, are almost imperceptible. A soft tap patiently increases its frequency alongside a muted guitar rhythm that intensifies at an equally measured rate. In "Suez," an electronic oscillation coils infinitely, up and down, like a Shepard tone as the rhythms become layered. What started as one thing ends as something else entirely. It's mesmerising.
  • Tracklist
      A Panama B Suez (Version)
RA