About Rafael Anton Irisarri

Rafael Anton Irisarri is an American 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. He is also known as the main member of electronic/shoegaze outfit The Sight Below. 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 compositions are deeply emotive and epic to the point of being symphonic. His work is widely published in over a dozen labels around the globe, most notably on the respected Ann Arbor, MI imprint Ghostly International. As a touring artist, Irisarri has performed and presented his audio-visual works at several prestigious and award-winning festivals worldwide, including Sónar (Barcelona, ES), MUTEK (Montreal, CA), Movement: DEMF (Detroit, US), Unsound (Krakow, PL), MITO Settembre Musica (Milan, IT), Israel Festival Jerusalem (Jerusalem, IL), EKKO Festival (Bergen, NO), among dozens more. Irisarri has collaborated live with an assortment of like-minded artists: Fennesz, Lillevan, Lawrence English, Grouper, Andrea Belfi, Simon Scott, Lusine, Shackleton, Lissom, Solvent, Svarte Greiner, and Marcus Fjellström. Back home in Seattle, Irisarri curates and produces advance sound and interdisciplinary art events around the city, thus creating a hub for contemporary art proposals while engaging in a constant dialogue with fellow artists, producers, critics and audiences. "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