Rafael Anton Irisarri - Peripeteia

  by Maarten Schiethart

published: 13 / 7 / 2020

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Review

Available on vinyl and as a download, 'Peripeteia' is best described by the title of its fourth track, 'Arduous Clarity'. Ghostly space travel acoustics intertwined with comfort zone electronica offers little room to train one's brain cells. What the album instead does is to offer to be your rather wonderful companion during these surreal times. 'Peripeteia' with its calm composure comforts rather than evokes. It is like you have got a bottle of Chinon Blanc when you thought you'd ordered a Champagne. It is still excellent, yet without the baffling buzz. Rafael Anton Irisarri most likely recorded 'Peripeteia' unaware that Covid 19 lay just ahead. Perhaps only vaguely showing such ambivalence, his album nevertheless almost perfectly brings a quasi Aristotelian message; the presentiment by an actor to a change in stances. 'Peripety', as in the English language 'Peripeteia' translates as, is his second album of 2020 already. Even if Irisarri was able to use the Corona Lockdown to the benefit of this album, his music has often before hinted at the need to switch the perspective. On 'Mellified' Rafael Anton Irisarri blends thumping tension with a sense of smoothing soothness. Together with 'Arduous Clarity' the album makes a round trip. Inspired by drone muzak and music, new age composition, space waves and recycled early 20th Century music - Claude Debussy and Erik Satie are mentioned as an influence -'Peripeteia' stands its own ground. I prefer to consider 'Peripeteia' as a 21st Century adaption of the experimentalism which we desperately need now. I regret that Rafael Anton Irisarri hasn't taken this as an opportunity to be extreme and confrontational. Evidently a certain beauty lies in the tame and lame.

Track Listing:-

1 I Still Have the Sun to Cast a Light
2 Between Negative Voids
3 Mellified
4 Arduous Clarity
5 Refuge/Refuse
6 Yearn
7 Fright and Control
8 Vanishing Points
9 Peripeteia (Continuous Mix)