Oren Ambarchi's work is pretty extreme even for Southern Lord. I mean, minimalism is a pretty definitive quality - to one degree or another - of doom and drone, but Ambarchi moves even deeper and comes forth with music that is minimalist even in comparison to Earth. An electronic guitarist and percussionist, Ambarchi has created a track that will draw people not ordinarily inclined toward Southern Lord, namely fans of certain kinds of electronica and ambient. I really dig space music for example, and I really appreciate Triste on that level, as minimalist electronic compositions. Of course, I also dig doom, but, hey, plenty that don't will find this interesting. Spartan as hell and sometimes slightly inaccessible even for space music die-hards, Ambarchi has crafted a masterpiece of atmospheric audio.

Sounds are by Ambarchi alone, using his guitar augmented by some basic processing and electronics. The show was presumably in a gallery or theater, because the vast pockets of space that Ambarchi leaves between the notes are filled by silence alone. No background noise is detected. The calm is important, as Ambarchi's preferred technique is to move between a small handful of tones, where he plucks a single guitar string and lets the sound slowly decay alongside prickly electric scrapes and pops. He alternates between a half-dozen or so notes, with silence predominating in the early going and sounds congregating into progressively dense clusters as time passes. There's a sensation that something other than two hands is causing the notes to sound, some silent and unknowable force setting things in motion and then moving in and around the vibrations. Because the music is still surprising and unpredictable after ten spins, Triste makes for excellent repeated listening.

The remakes by Recchion are excellent. Ambarchi's bell-like tones are prominent, but rather than focusing on a particular aspect of the original piece, Recchion uses the material to construct something new. Playing against the seeming randomness of Ambarchi's pieces, Recchion adds anchoring drones and sequences, thereby softening the material and making it more conventionally musical. Recchion's treatments are deeply affecting, occasionally even bordering on the sentimental, which is amazing considering the coolly removed nature of the source. All in all, Triste is a deeply satisfying exploration of abstract sound.