In the intervening years he has continued to ramp up his eclectic and seemingly ceaseless collaborative schedule with major players operating at the interstices of free jazz, industrial, electronic and avant metal including Mats Gustafsson, z’ev, Jim O’Rourke, Keiji Haino and, perhaps most famously, Sunn O))). With his background as an improv drummer and his unconventional use of guitar ‘n’ FX as a generator of seductively suspended tones, Ambarchi seems to effortlessly augment pretty much any configuration of players to collectively produce wildly original and captivating work. In comparison, his solo releases up to and including ‘In the Pendulum’s Embrace’ have largely focussed on studied, live processes that transmute his guitar tones into rivers of harmonics that elegantly combine and fall out of phase with one another to reveal meditative sonic phenomena not expected from the six stringed instrument. Whereas ‘Audience of One’, perhaps influenced more by his collaborations than previous solo outings, showcases many more sides to Ambarchi’s rich talents.

As if strategically pre-empting the extent of these deviations, Touch released a compilation two years’ ago, suitably titled ‘Intermission’, that hoovered up diverse tracks from last decade that retrospectively highlight new nuances in Ambarchi’s output. And perhaps the most surprising track on the compilation was ‘Iron Waves’, a remix of ‘Parasail’ by New Yorker Paul Duncan (of Warm Ghost), where Ambarchi’s billowing guitar and ritualistic bell-work are set beneath Duncan’s voice to form a deceptively simple yet emotional ballad, and ‘Audience of One’ opens with what could be described as its a sequel. Titled ‘Salt’, it is a touching, understated spiritual lamenting childhood memories of the taste of tears. Duncan’s multi-layered smoky vocals drift across Ambarchi’s sympathetically suspended guitar tones, each ignited by the briefest of pops before extending bass-heavy warmth and bright sonorous beams that caress then coalesce as they decay. Instead of a chorus, gently simmering strings emerge to form a soulful shoulder for Duncan to cry on.

After such a tender tale, nothing can prepare one for ‘Knots’, which, at over 30 minutes, takes the lion’s share of Audience of One’s hour. For the most part it comes on like some kind of gladiatorial fight between Ambarchi’s full arsenal of guitar tones and Joe Talia’s fierce and incessant percussion. For the first half they seem to be aggressively circling each other, Talia’s propulsive and frenetic tapping taunting Ambarchi into releasing animalistic groans and whines, egged on by a ceremonial French horn and arching strings arranged by Eyvind Kang. But by midway the circling has abated and the fight is truly on – low slung distorted power chords seethe and burn as drumming erupts and splashes in retaliation – until the guitars’ feedback forms a merciful rain that slowly and temporarily washes away the violence, lending a deceptive calm. But the last seven or so minutes are filled with what sounds like big, slow attacks on sheet metal, as if the artists are tearing up the performance space until it can no longer produce any sounds at all.

‘Passage’ follows to take us away from the destructive arena into a sharply contrasting serenity of interleaving small sounds – single sustained piano notes overlap small rustling movements patiently joined by the pure tones from Jessika Kenney’s exquisite voice, Ambarchi’s Hammond organ and a pleasantly whining wine glass – before Kang’s viola is bowed loosely and a guitar is casually plucked to suggest a song is coming.

And that song is a cover version of Ace Frehley’s instrumental rock anthem ‘Fractured Mirror’ that closed his first solo album back in 1978 while still a member of Kiss. Providing the last of ‘Audience of One’s many stylistic surprises, Ambarchi’s version is played straight, although resists the original’s power chords, to revel in its wholly melodic, repetitive properties largely spun by layers of brightly plucked acoustic and electric guitars.

‘Fractured Mirror’ provides a shiny, happy ending as the credits roll on a multi-faceted album that takes its listeners through all known emotions (and, quite possibly, some new undefined ones) where fiercely atonal avant garde manoeuvres are followed by wholly musical matter without losing the strong, coherent identity of a coolly confident composer at the height of his powers. Expertly played, mixed and sequenced, Audience of One is, quiet simply, an outstanding experience.