Reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

This is the second collaboration between Abul Mogard and Rafael Anton Irisarri, created during a three-day residency at Berlin’s Morphine Raum. The duo recorded their performances live while also reshaping their work, using rotary speakers, modular synthesizers and bowed guitar. All were captured through a vintage (1970s!) mixing console and microphones placed around the room.

As the pair returned to their home studios, Mogard manipulated the existing material through his studio in Rome, while Irisarri added guitar textures and treatments in New York. Then, passages recorded by cellist Martina Bertoni and violinist Andrea Burelli in Berlin added new layers to their work, after which Mogard reassembled everything into the final versions.

What’s the music like?

Like a slow-moving swan, this album proceeds serenely with no hint of the process going on underneath. Heard on headphones, there are moments of heart-shifting beauty as the slow moving but firmly set musical processes make their mark, and the harmonies make telling turns when led by the bassy drones.

This is the case for In the Eastern Wild, a descriptive number that grows in stature to become an awesome presence, a wall of sound complemented by Over The Domes, held exquisitely in suspension.

The centrepiece of the album is A Blue Descent, where immersive ambience takes on new levels with the help of Bertoni’s long-breathed cello phrases, brooding yet uplifting, and In A Quiet Radiance, which goes through a similarly pronounced crescendo. Here Burelli’s violin sits above with a wordless vocal, all beautifully judged and woven together.

The comedown from this is the huge space found by Of Blessed Ages, then the wall of outdoor white noise that is Among Shadows, with a drone you could happily dive into.

Does it all work?

Yes. The pair work as one throughout, the music unfolding with a natural beauty and stature rare in ambient music.

Is it recommended?

With great enthusiasm. This is music that can calm the fevered brow, but also warm the cold heart, for there are great emotional depths found through the smallest movement. A deeply impressive achievement.

Listen / Buy

Published post no.3,005 – Wednesday 2 September 2026