Release Notes
Label: Black Knoll Editions
Release: A Fragile Geography: Reworks
Date: October 24, 2025
Mastered By: Stephan Mathieu at Schwebung
Artwork By: Daniel Castrejón
After decades of chasing, accumulating, and then sharing new music with you, I think I’ve hit some saturation point. I think I’m done spinning in the vortex of the “new”, being pulled in all directions, catching up on all the “fresh” and “innovative” tracks. I’m not saying that I will stop covering new music. No. But I think I’ll focus the virtual lens of my listening on a very narrow point, investing my time and attention over more extended periods. I think I will turn inwards… towards music and the artists that genuinely make me feel. This is the case with Rafael Anton Irisarri‘s A Fragile Geography, an album from 2015, which captured my attention then as it does now, triggering memories, triggering thoughts, and emotion. A decade ago, during a move between coasts, Rafael lost his possessions – stolen with the moving truck – along with all his audio archives, forcing him to rebuild his studio and sound from the ground up. The pain of this loss is reflected in almost every single track on the album. This music is slightly dark and melancholic. It’s visceral, and it gets under your skin. And there it stays with you for ages. Becoming part of you, becoming part of your existence.
On September 19th, the album will be reissued, beautifully remastered by Stephan Mathieu at his Schwebung studio, along with a limited edition cassette of remixes by the most renowned artists, handpicked by Rafael. “This record has always been about letting go of one life and rebuilding another”, says Irisarri, “It feels fitting to return to it now – ten years later, in a different country, a different world.” These reworks are worthy of your precious awareness as well. I know that there are more than a few in the pipeline (at least six), which will be revealed one at a time. As of this writing, there is already a gorgeous rework by the one and only William Basinski, with his version of “Secretly Wishing For Rain” with Gary Thomas Wright, which incorporates field recordings of Reseda rain and birds captured by Basinski himself. You can check out a digital stream of that track here. *BUT!* Today, I am premiering for you a second rework by Abul Mogard! This piece bears not only the original elements of “Persistence” but, of course, Guido’s extremely personal touch that breathes new life into this sound.
‘Persistence’ is a track I’ve always liked from Rafael. In fact, we used parts of it as a kind of thread for the final piece we performed together during our concerts this past year, which eventually became ‘Cascade Infinite’. When he asked me to rework it for this new edition of ‘A Fragile Geography’, I knew I couldn’t simply revisit it. I felt the need to break it apart. I wanted to deconstruct it, to return to something closer to its DNA. I used a great piece of software called GRM Player, developed by the team at GRM in Paris. It lets you take a sound file and mangle it, breaking it down to its smallest parts and revealing what lies beneath. These sounds, when further layered and shaped with my studio equipment, began to grow. At times, they felt dense and fragile at the same time. At some point, the tonal centre seemed to shift, or maybe it was just my ears. I stopped trying to hold it in place and let the piece lead me, not knowing where it would end. What emerged wasn’t exactly a remix but something parallel, almost a shadow or perhaps a dream of the original.
— Abul Mogard
Once again, there are two releases here. On September 19th, Irisarri shares a 10th Anniversary Reissue of his monumental A Fragile Geography album, available on a limited edition BioVinyl as yellow, orange, or black 12″ via his own Black Knoll Editions. You can pre-order these copies directly on Bandcamp. And then there is an ongoing “drip” of digital reworks, leading up to the release, with the final collection available on a physical, limited edition cassette, which you can pre-order here.
