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IRISARRI, RAFAEL ANTON — FACADISMS
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The seeds of composer Rafael Anton Irisarris latest LP were first planted during his 2016 tour in Italy, months before that Autumns unexpected presidential election. The linguistic glitch of an innocuous diner in Milan named il Mito Americano meant as The American Dream but translated literally to English as The American Myth sparked a series of ideas, both conceptual and musical.
Amid the chaos of 2020, while exploring the stark world of brutalist architecture and inspired by the false fronts of Potemkin villages, a vision started to take shape: FAADISMS. Composed over three years, its a late capitalist lament of simmering electric despondency.
Irisarris obsession with repeating motifs mirrors the cyclical nature of our tumultuous political history. The albums eight tracks heave and storm like a tempest being drained of its rage. This is the sound of majestic dissipation, of morning afters, fashioned from a mournful haze with cavernous guitars and granular twilight. A euphony of a receding tide as one sifts through the remnants of what remains: dust, delusion, and memory.
Opening with the somber gauze of Broken Intensification," FAADISMS moves fluidly between moments of absence and abandon. Ashen swaths of electronics billow above smoldering embers of melody, guitar, and scattered streaks of processed strings and voice, as on the rapturous doom of Control Your Soul's Desire for Freedom, featuring Julia Kent on cello and Hannah Elizabeth Cox on vocals.
"The impoverished peoples of the Americas have known all along that 'freedom' is a cruel illusion crafted by the elites, akin to Potemkin's fake villages designed to impress Catherine the Great," Irisarri indicates. "FAADISMS illustrates a twisted inversion where the rulers deceive their subjects with illusions of safety, democracy, and free speech to create a grotesque mirage of control over their own lives.
Elsewhere, Irisarri leans into passages of hushed oblivion (Hollow, Dispersion of Belief), while ragged drones rumble and disintegrate into wind-battered ambient wreckage. One has the sense that its all too late. The hour of fury has passed. The beauty has come and gone. Irisarris muse has become the crack in the faade of the unraveling myth.
The record closes with a climax of grand departure. Co-written with Kenyan sound artist KMRU, Red Moon Tide surges from flickering elegy to celestial disquiet, roiling waves of hymnal descent, and bristling noise. The effect is unsettling and unmooring: a soundtrack for the soul leaving the body, only to discover a void. Its the sound of the center not holding, of shared illusions being dissolved in a tunnel of white light.
The cover photograph captures a profound sense of desolation. Taken in the historic shanty town of La Perla, Puerto Rico, where Irisarri spent his childhood, brutal colonial mysteries are lost to time. A skeletal concrete structure decays against an expansive blue horizon. Only the shadow of its shell ripples on the empty sea.
Has the American myth finally run its course?
All tracks composed, produced and performed by Rafael Anton Irisarri, except Red Moon Tide composed by Joseph Kamaru Mwangi and Rafael Anton Irisarri.
James Brown - Strategies (against conformity)
Hannah Elizabeth Cox - Vocals on Control Your Souls Desire for Freedom
Rafael Anton Irisarri - Electric guitars, effects and treatments, field recordings, Max, and synthesizers
T. R Jordan - String arrangements and sequencing on Forever Ago is Now
Julia Kent - Cello on Control Your Souls Desire for Freedom
KMRU - Field recordings, Lyra 8 on Red Moon Tide
Yamila - Vocals on Red Moon Tide
Recorded in Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Nairobi, New York, and Oxford.
Mixed at Black Knoll (NY)
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu
Lacquer cut at Schallplatten Schneid Technik (DE)
Pressed on BioVinyl at Optimal (DE)
Artwork and layout - Daniel Castrejn
Cover photograph - Nathaniel Young
Legal Matt Cuttler, Esq
Published by Mute Song
Made in Germany
℗ Black Knoll Editions
BKE019 MMXXIV
All Right Reserved
https://irisarri.bandcamp.com/album/fa-adisms
Amid the chaos of 2020, while exploring the stark world of brutalist architecture and inspired by the false fronts of Potemkin villages, a vision started to take shape: FAADISMS. Composed over three years, its a late capitalist lament of simmering electric despondency.
Irisarris obsession with repeating motifs mirrors the cyclical nature of our tumultuous political history. The albums eight tracks heave and storm like a tempest being drained of its rage. This is the sound of majestic dissipation, of morning afters, fashioned from a mournful haze with cavernous guitars and granular twilight. A euphony of a receding tide as one sifts through the remnants of what remains: dust, delusion, and memory.
Opening with the somber gauze of Broken Intensification," FAADISMS moves fluidly between moments of absence and abandon. Ashen swaths of electronics billow above smoldering embers of melody, guitar, and scattered streaks of processed strings and voice, as on the rapturous doom of Control Your Soul's Desire for Freedom, featuring Julia Kent on cello and Hannah Elizabeth Cox on vocals.
"The impoverished peoples of the Americas have known all along that 'freedom' is a cruel illusion crafted by the elites, akin to Potemkin's fake villages designed to impress Catherine the Great," Irisarri indicates. "FAADISMS illustrates a twisted inversion where the rulers deceive their subjects with illusions of safety, democracy, and free speech to create a grotesque mirage of control over their own lives.
Elsewhere, Irisarri leans into passages of hushed oblivion (Hollow, Dispersion of Belief), while ragged drones rumble and disintegrate into wind-battered ambient wreckage. One has the sense that its all too late. The hour of fury has passed. The beauty has come and gone. Irisarris muse has become the crack in the faade of the unraveling myth.
The record closes with a climax of grand departure. Co-written with Kenyan sound artist KMRU, Red Moon Tide surges from flickering elegy to celestial disquiet, roiling waves of hymnal descent, and bristling noise. The effect is unsettling and unmooring: a soundtrack for the soul leaving the body, only to discover a void. Its the sound of the center not holding, of shared illusions being dissolved in a tunnel of white light.
The cover photograph captures a profound sense of desolation. Taken in the historic shanty town of La Perla, Puerto Rico, where Irisarri spent his childhood, brutal colonial mysteries are lost to time. A skeletal concrete structure decays against an expansive blue horizon. Only the shadow of its shell ripples on the empty sea.
Has the American myth finally run its course?
All tracks composed, produced and performed by Rafael Anton Irisarri, except Red Moon Tide composed by Joseph Kamaru Mwangi and Rafael Anton Irisarri.
James Brown - Strategies (against conformity)
Hannah Elizabeth Cox - Vocals on Control Your Souls Desire for Freedom
Rafael Anton Irisarri - Electric guitars, effects and treatments, field recordings, Max, and synthesizers
T. R Jordan - String arrangements and sequencing on Forever Ago is Now
Julia Kent - Cello on Control Your Souls Desire for Freedom
KMRU - Field recordings, Lyra 8 on Red Moon Tide
Yamila - Vocals on Red Moon Tide
Recorded in Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Nairobi, New York, and Oxford.
Mixed at Black Knoll (NY)
Mastered by Stephan Mathieu
Lacquer cut at Schallplatten Schneid Technik (DE)
Pressed on BioVinyl at Optimal (DE)
Artwork and layout - Daniel Castrejn
Cover photograph - Nathaniel Young
Legal Matt Cuttler, Esq
Published by Mute Song
Made in Germany
℗ Black Knoll Editions
BKE019 MMXXIV
All Right Reserved
https://irisarri.bandcamp.com/album/fa-adisms