(2019) Rafael Anton Irisarri - Solastalgia


Review:
New York-based ambient producer and composer Rafael Anton Irisarri returns to Room40 with a new album, Solastalgia. The title references a kind of mental or existential anxiety brought about by environmental change and the album’s track titles, ‘Decay Waves’, ‘Kiss All the Pretty Skies Goodbye’ and ‘Coastal Trapped Disturbance’, seem to allude to a fast-approaching ecological disaster. Building on the echoes of landscape that guided his previous Room40 editions, Solastalgia imagines that which is not yet known. It traces possible terminus points for futures that many of us will not live to see. Utilising a range of unexpected variables, automations and uncontrolled systems in the creation of the recordings, Irisarri has developed a new approach to his work, seamlessly weaving together intense layers of texture and saturated harmony. Within these works, distant melodies emerge and in their wake the listeners’ focus shifts again and again. A never ending loop of the unconscious feeding into the conscious is formed. Whilst the skeletal form of pieces such as ‘Coastal Trapped Disturbance’ might remain, the organic matter that is the body of the music is in a process of persistent transformation. These subconscious variations morph the pieces from within. This is a record of sublimation, and dwells in states of transition and becoming. Recorded in two suites (one released on LP and the other available initially only on limited edition cassette) , each section is a distorted mirror reflection of the other. Solastalgia stands as a landmark undertaking for Irisarri, it encourages us to remain unsettled and attentive in the moment, and prompts us to listen deeper and imagine what lies beyond or in excess of our expectations.


Media Report:
Genre: ambient, experimental
Source: CD
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits