“The streets are full of admirable craftsmen, but so few practical dreamers.”
- Man Ray
Rafael Anton Irisarri is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, curator and mixed media artist. He is predominantly associated with post-minimalist, drone and ambient music and has been exploring textural electronics for over half a decade.
Irisarri’s recorded output captures an essential vision of floating tones, deep pulsing bass and textured Gaussian curves. His use of ostinato phrases taps into minimalist ideals, whilst his use of atmospheric layers of reverb suggests a more cinematic quality. In all, Irisarri’s work is deeply emotive and epic to the point of being symphonic. Sparse piano notes, reverb-drenched guitar textures, subsonic drones, field recordings, soundclouds, strings and minimal electronic counterpoints all contribute and converge equally in the music to create an oceanic experience. It’s been described by music journalists as “a dual perspective close-up focus on the micro textures of rustling static-filled sonic surfaces with the wide-open distant tree lined horizons of sunset at dusk.”
Live, Irisarri has performed and presented his audio-visual works at several prestigious and award-winning festivals around the globe, including Sónar (Barcelona, ES), MUTEK (Montreal, CA), Movement: DEMF (Detroit, US), Unsound (Krakow, PL), MITO Settembre Musica (Milan, IT), Israel Festival (Jerusalem, IL), S.O.Y. Festival (Nantes, FR), TimeZones (Bari, IT), Node (Modena, IT), EKKO Festival (Bergen, NO), among many others.
Irisarri has released in over a dozen labels worldwide, most notably working with the Ann Arbor, MI imprint Ghostly International (as The Sight Below). ‘Daydreaming,” his debut album on Norwegian label Miasmah was very well-received by the press and music community. “Hopes and Past Desires,” a two-track 7” vinyl released by the Thrill Jockey distributed label, Immune followed in 2009 to much critical-acclaim. A second vinyl release on Immune (12” mini-LP) “Reverie,” was released on April 2010 and quickly became out-of-print.
His latest solo LP, “The North Bend,” will be released in August by respected Australian imprint Room40. It’s an ambitious work that tips its hat to the rugged terrain of the American Pacific Northwest. Hinting at connections to David Lynch’s television-narrative redefining Twin Peaks, and contributing a new form to those traditions (that of neoclassical, spectral and ambient sublimity amongst other representations of the vast natural surroundings of the Cascadia region), Rafael Anton Irisarri’s music transport and transfix those that come across his sounds.
“Irisarri uses his guitar as a strings-like symphonic element to generate atmospheric masses…like an ambient symphony recording that’s been rescued from attic entombment after half a century.” – Textura
Back home in Seattle Irisarri helps organize the Decibel Festival, bringing his expertise in experiential sound and music cultures while fostering exchanges between academic musical traditions, experimental, pop subcultures and art disciplines, cultural fields, scenes and genres. Aside from the festival, he curates and produces individual events around the city, creating a hub for advance sound proposals while engaging in a constant dialogue with fellow artists, producers, critics and audiences.