Oren Ambarchi was born in Sydney to an Iraqi Jewish family. Ambarchi has been performing live since 1986. In the late 1980s he played free jazz in Sydney, originally as a drummer. In an interview with ABC Radio broadcaster, Jon Rose, Ambarchi described how he started playing guitar,
There happened to be one laying around in our rehearsal room. I picked it up and starting hitting it with drumsticks and using it in whatever way I wanted to use it in, and one thing led to another. I'm glad I wasn't trained. I've always loved rock music, I grew up listening to pop and rock, so that was in my mind, but I've also been interested in electronics. I never wanted to learn to play it properly, it was an object as much as an instrument.
He was a member of noise band Phlegm with Robbie Avenaim, with whom he co-organised the What Is Music Festival. His work focuses mainly on the exploration of the guitar, though he also plays drums and percussion in some of his live performances.
Ambarchi contributed to drone metal band Sunn O)))'s Black One album in 2005, and has since become a frequent live performer with the band, as well as contributing to the Oracle EP and Monoliths & Dimensions album. He also released a vinyl EP with Attila Csihar and Sunn O)))'s Greg Anderson under the name Burial Chamber Trio and has performed with Attila Csihar and Stephen O'Malley, the other half of Sunn O))), under the name Gravetemple. Ambarchi also works in popular music contexts and is a drummer for the group Sun with composer/musician Chris Townend.
In May 2010, he performed live with Boris at the Vivid Live Noise Night curated by Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson. Ambarchi collaborated with multi-instrumentalist Paul Duncan of Warm Ghost on experimental music projects.
Partial discography
(1998) Stacte (Jerker Productions)
(1999) Stacte.2 (Jerker Productions)
(1999) Clockwork with Robbie Avenaim (Jerker Productions, Room40 reissue 2005)
(1999) The Alter Rebbe's Nigun with Robbie Avenaim (Tzadik)
