Experimental Electronic Music
There is a geography of the soul that Rafael Anton Irisarri mapped out in 2015, a cartography drawn with electrified mists, torn soundscapes, and submerged melancholies. A Fragile Geography, his third release on Room40 (see our 2016 review here), spoke at the time with a dark and hushed voice, the echo of an emotionally fractured era. Now, ten years later, the album returns in a newly curated edition by Black Knoll Editions.
As with previous volumes, For LA Vol. 3 not only highlights the creative brilliance of its contributors but also stands as a testament to the power of music in driving meaningful change.
Through carefully tuned machines and dusty synthesizers, INIT unfolds gradually, with rising, undulating drones transforming the space around us.
Highlighting hundreds of releases in 2024 (and allowing December to set in), we’ve compiled a list of our favorites along with links to their corresponding Igloo reviews and release pages. Since the lists are arranged alphabetically by artist—and a snapshot of tracks are featured in our Soundcloud playlist along with selected Bandcamp tracks and random artwork selections—there are, as usual, no winners or runners-up.
An ethereal ambient record that incorporates live instrumentation as well, more notably in the form of orchestral accompaniments with guitar workouts splattered throughout—and some occasional vocals too.
Igloo Magazine presents Five Questions for New York-based Black Knoll Editions label operator, musician, and Black Knoll Studio analog/digital mastering Engineer Rafael Anton Irisarri to plunge into his experimental ambient sonic forms, and learn more about the label, mastering studio, and artistic trajectories.
A very creative composer who isn’t afraid to delve into the strands of the past and present, threading surreal, evocative, and emotionally charged aural pathways that we will continue to revisit.
Impossibly Distant, Impossibly Close is a brooding and at the same time priceless contemplative effort for entrancing noises, velveting drones and revered guitar phrasings.
A felicitous confluence of two distinct sound worlds/whorls in a zone notionally adumbrated by texture-mappers.
Throughout the album, labyrinthine lyrical reflections are dispersed with dazzling images, blurring scenes in world history with the most personal album by Meluch.
The whole naturally transcends reductive description in deeper listening mode, from which arises a tenor marked by a kind of wistful unease.
