Tracking a personal and pivotal moment in his life, Rafael Anton Irisarri’s fateful album A Fragile Geography has shifted meanings from grief to resilience in the ten years since it was released. Irisarri’s mix for Bleep taps back into those initial feelings changed by time, highlighting glistening blankets of sound, gauzy chord sweeps, and romantic bittersweet swells amidst the swathes of blasting, folding harmonic noise. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s dreamily puffing organ chords waltz towards the swaying pendulum of piano on Bohren & Der Club Of Gore’s ‘Maximum Black’, revealing a jazz backing of noir drum shuffles. Mabe Fratti’s voice is soft and billowy like a cloud of perfume on her rework of ‘Hiatus’, dispersed by the privately reflective noise of Ethel Cain’s ‘Onanist’, both airily cushioning and sharply confronting.
“I made this mix for Bleep to celebrate the tenth anniversary and reissue of my album "A Fragile Geography". I structured the mix to mirror how grief moves through us. It's a haze of fragmented memories and emotions, drifting like smoke through dimly lit rooms with memory stained walls. Each song feels like a whispered thought, a fogged-up mirror, or a letter never sent. Some tracks feel soft and distant, while others hit a little harder. Grief doesn’t scream here; it sighs, loops, and lingers. Tape hiss, faint piano, distant voices, and time dissolved strings shape the sound. I wanted this mix to feel like memory itself: flickering, fading, and returning. Remember, forget, and remember all over again.” - Rafael Anton Irisarri
