Oren Ambarchi - Cooked (2026)

Another grand ensemble statement from Ambarchi in the vein of 'Hubris' and 'Shebang', 'Cooked' is a sprawling avant-prog-fusion epic that features Eiko Ishibashi, Jim O'Rourke, Will Guthrie, James Rushford, the Ghosted crew and many others in its all-star ensemble.

Ambarchi never stops, but you have to respect the fact that he bottles up his best for these star-studded milestone releases. On 'Hubris', that recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, he assembled a group featuring Ricardo Villalobos, Keith Fullerton Whitman, Mark Fell and Arto Lindsay and in 2022, when he debuted on Drag City with 'Shebang', he roped in Jules Reidy, BJ Cole, Chris Abrahams and other Black Truffle regulars to imagine a potent fusion of Pat Metheny Group and Steve Reich's 'Electric Counterpoint'. 'Cooked' picks up where the latter left off, cracking open with Ishibashi's immediately recognisable piano flourishes. Ambarchi works as a conductor at first, inviting Johan Berthling to join on double bass while his organ-like Leslie guitar drones in the background. It's Ambarchi's regular sparring partner Konrad Sprenger (aka Joerg Hiller) who makes the most conspicuous noise, though, adding uncanny synth vocalisations to the muddle of instruments that enter the frame like a cybernetic answer to Robert Ashley's 'Automatic Writing'.

As the side develops, Sprenger's mutterings become moans and O'Rourke adds subtle synth textures, paving the way for another Ambarchi regular, Joe Talia, to make a splash with his drop at the track's midpoint. It's a molasses slow build though, variations on a theme rather than a relentless push towards sonic density. Ambarchi zones in on microscopic detail - subtle dissonances, psychedelic resonances and downsampled pseudo-glitches - rather than getting tangled in dynamic urgency. It's a groggy meditation, the sonic equivalent of hotboxing at hot yoga.

But really, it's all about the flip. On 'Sleight of Hand', Berthling leads with twanging double bass while James Rushford and Marcus Pal duke it out with what sounds like JI-tuned synths and electric piano. Again, Ambarchi lets his collaborators shine at first, loitering in the background until he bursts out with rapid sequences that seem to mimic Miles Davis's trumpet - we're not kidding. Michiko Ogawa's addition of the shō adds an extra layer of texture, before Swedish improviser Isak Hedtjärn whistles the side to its conclusion.

We'll be unpicking this one for the next few.