Swans

Frontier Touring is pleased to announce that experimental guitar veteran Oren Ambarchi will be joining New York City noise merchants Swans on their forthcoming headline shows in Melbourne and Sydney.
 
“From modest beginnings, in the last two decades Oren Ambarchi has risen to become one of the world’s best-known experimental musicians, whose work crosses genres and boundaries with ease.” – The Quietus
 
“Easily one of Oren Ambarchi's best works to date, Audience Of One is an amazing four-track suite of songs that succinctly binds many of his disparate modes of production into a satisfying whole. At turns expansive and intimate, the album opens with a shimmering, long sigh of a pop, before launching into an epic, loping thirty-minute-plus track of shifting tones, low-end feedback, and clicking percussion.” – Other Music USA
 
Oren Ambarchi is a critically acclaimed Australian composer and multi-instrumentalist, whose work revolves around transcending conventional instrumental processes, focusing primarily on the exploration of the guitar. Having performed in venues across all corners of the globe and at music festivals globally, from Sonar (Barcelona) to VIVID (Sydney), Ambarchi’s discography is as long as it is varied. His current release, Quixotism, features a wide array of guests such as Jim O’Rourke, Thomas Brinkmann, John Tilbury, Eyvind Kang and the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra: see here.
 
Ambarchi has worked with a wealth of musicians, including names such as Keiji Haino, Fennesz, John Zorn, Alvin Lucier, Evan Parker and many more. His collaboration with US avant metal outfit Sunn 0))) is much celebrated, having contributed to their many releases. In May 2010, he performed live alongside experimental Japanese outfit Boris at Sydney’s Vivid Live Noise Night, as curated by Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson. Ambarchi’s acclaimed trio with Keiji Haino and  Jim O’Rourke perform in Tokyo annually, their concerts are documented on the Black Truffle label.
 
Oren Ambarchi’s music can move from jazz to metal through his unique guitar techniques, a combination of improvised elements and carefully assembled pieces that draw from many inspirations. The talented multi-instrumentalist has released numerous recordings for international labels such as Touch, Drag City, Southern Lord, Editions Mego, Table Of The Elements and Tzadik. His solo release Sagittarian Domain was voted #1 in Spin magazine’s Best Avant albums of 2012. His latest release is Quixotism, which was listed in The Wire’s top 50 releases of 2014.
 
Currently in the midst of a major European tour, Swans recently released EP Oxygen in late November – check it out here. As well as these headline shows, they will also be appearing at Melbourne’s Sugar Mountain festival at Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) and Hobart’s MOFO. Demand for their only two sideshows is high and tickets are selling fast!
 
Don’t miss your chance to see two of the most influential experimental guitar acts of today when Swans perform in Melbourne and Sydney this summer. 

Experimental rock band Swans, who first emerged in the 1980s during New York’s No Wave scene, will be returning Down Under in January to play headline shows in Melbourne and Sydney.

Made up of Michael Gira, Norman Westberg, Christoph Hahn, Phil Puleo, Thor Harris and Christopher Pravdica, Swans have released an astounding 12 studio albums, with album 13 To Be Kind (out now through Young God Records) continuing to push boundaries and draw in listeners with their ability to create sounds which are equal parts beautiful and confronting.

After a 13-year break, Gira resurrected the Swans, releasing critically acclaimed albums My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope and The Seer. The latest album, produced by Gira himself and recorded by John Congleton at Sonic Ranch, was developed live during the Swans tours of 2012/13 and what resulted was two hours and ten tracks of mini, mind bending symphonies of hypnotic and psychedelic tendencies.

‘Even at their most claustrophobic and confrontational, there has always been a splendid, unsettling beauty to Swans’ music, with rock instrumentation and lyrics wrenched into jagged configurations often intended to sandpaper away at the nerves.’ – The Quietus

‘As it plays out, To Be Kind starts to resemble a cult procession unto itself, a mesmerizing spectacle of an omnipotent band whose sound continues to expand in scope and ranks swell in size’ – Pitchfork 9.2/10

Avant-garde to the extreme, Gira’s music is and all-encompassing experience that somehow affects your entire sensory system. You don’t just hear it or listen to it, but feel it. This latest record is no exception.’ – NME 9/10

The last two times we brought the Swans to Australia, their immersive, unique performances was an experience like no other and this is only expected to have magnified since then. An experience you truly do not want to miss out on!