Introduced to each other by the label, the two artists found common ground with thousands of miles between them, in more ways than one. A desire for each other's work sparked a productive partnership that quickly found Leandro creating specific sounds based on concrete directives from Rafael. Leandro Fresco’s signature melodies and warm, colorful textures have adorned the Argentinian’s work ever since his first appearance on Kompakt’s Pop Ambient Series in 2003, right up to his latest artist album El Reino Invisible (2015). This "melodic sensibility" as Rafael likes to say, proved to be the defining undercurrent to Rafael’s signature sound design, a combination that takes each of their distinct sounds into new heartbreaking territory…
Even though the sound expanses traversed by ambient music often evoke feelings of horizontality, layered planeness and volatile textures tranquilly billowing out, it is also true that the greater representatives of the genre and its sub-branches – like mountaineers – mostly seek for sky-scraping verticality. Ranking high in the pantheon of atmosphere architects, Rafael Anton Irisarri certainly has nothing left to prove. Since his beginnings over ten years ago, his output has gained a density that very few can boast having reached, establishing a sound that has the power to haunt your nights and the crucial energy to bring your most buried existential dreams out of mothballs.
"…Still, the 1962 is not first rank for todays standards but is very good for the period. Recommended." ~sa-cd.net