Rafael Anton Irisarri has always had a knack for conveying emotion in his music, and for his newest album on the Mexico City-based label, Umor Rex, he’s making clear that the feelings delivered aren’t contrived from a Spock-like stoicism. A series of circumstances, including a reported “near-death experience” in 2016, led to the now NY-based musician and engineer to consider his own mortality. That moribund mindframe was then compounded by the American presidential election of 2016; and together, those led to a relative flurry of activity at Irisarri’s Black Knoll Studio, which ultimately became the state-of-the-art setting for musical catharsis. Mind you, this all took place before Trump’s actual inauguration, when fears among many were at their paralyzing peak of potential. Be glad that Raf got this out of the way beforehand!
And by “this,” I mean The Shameless Years, the aforementioned new release, which is out August 25 on the Mexico City-based Umor Rex label. The album’s title is said to have been borne out of reaction to the current political climate; although, musically, Irisarri was anything but “ashamed” to utilize software tools from Native Instruments in conjunction with his collection of guitars, pedals, amps, and various analogue gear. Iranian artist (and Umor Rex mainstay) Siavash Amini assisted on the tracks “Karma Krama” and “The Faithless,” which are being billed as marginally more sorrowful than the likely-sorrowful rest. So yeah: The Shameless Years seems to be aiming for nothing less than a truly superlative cohesion of sorrow! (Fun choice for your end-of-summer beach bash?)
You can pre-order the whole doleful caboodle right here and check out the video for the track “RH Negative” below. Also, here’s our review of Irisarri’s prior solo effort, A Fragile Geography. (Another solid option for your beach bash.)
The Shameless Years tracklisting:
01. Indefinite Fields
02. RH Negative
03. Bastion
04. Sky Burial
05. Karma Krama
06. The Faithless
More about: Rafael Anton Irisarri, Siavah Amini, The Sight Below
