Seeing something you never saw before that was always there but you were blind to it.
Sounds Like
Over the course of 4 years, Ryan Francesconi has released three albums’ worth of lovely acoustic-ambient music under the RF moniker. All of RF’s music is characterized by an almost preternatural blend of electronic elements—samples, loops, effects processing, glitch—and more acoustic, traditional elements—vocal arrangements, strings, horns, ethnic instrumentation. The result is music that is as technically intriguing as it is intimate and warm, drawing inspiration from such diverse sources as the changing seasons, Francesconi’s world travels, and the writings of Haruki Murakami.
Springs is the latest RF-related release, this time a collection of remixes by various friends and allies, as well as Francesconi himself. But “remix” is perhaps too limited a term in this context; you won’t hear any extended club-friendly four-on-the-floor singles on the disc. Perhaps “reworking” is a more apt term, as the 10 songs on Springs take various songs from all three of RF’s full-lengths, sometimes reworking the entire song, sometimes just a melodic fragment or two, or sometimes just the theme of the song in question.
The fruits of this particular set of very creative loins is a delectable selection of friendly and very warm Electronica and guitar-based sounds and comes with versions by Greg Davis, RdL (aka Mondi aka Spekk main-man Nao Sugimoto plus Naph), Sawako, Filfla, Midori Hirano, Familiar Trees, .Tape., Sora, He Can Jog and RF himself. It's hard to state just how beautiful this album is as each artist takes key elements from Francesconi's songs and weaves them into an organic and luscious series of reworks. Layered guitars, breathy vocals and the gentlest hint of electronic manipulation all breathe life into these heartfelt and wonderfully evocative tracks. To say it's highly recommended is obvious and fans of his earlier work, any of the remix artists and certainly a label such as Plop should treat this as an essential. Delightful.
"Springs" is a compilation CD featuring 10 of his tracks reworked by nine of his best music pals (Familiar Trees, .Tape., He Can Jog, Sora, Greg Davis, FilFla, Sawako, Madori Hirano, RdL). Obviously, as you can easily imagine, the boundaries between remix and re-make are blurry, to say the least, but that's what happens (and what is supposed to happen for it to make sense anyway) when you cut loose of the outside influence and you let them run with it. This ambitious and maybe a tad self-celebrative release, has more to offer than just new versions of old stuff. The common denominator of all songs can probably be considered the way sounds are treated in relation to their originating source and spacially positioned with reverberation. The arrangments are sophisticated and the dreamy approach of the material blends well with the resulting magma of sweetened airness and cloudy spring freshness.
Spring is the beginning--when this years green appears through last year's brown. The notion of rebirth, recyling, and remaking. In the digital medium, the idea of remixing is less a separate process than simply how music is often made. The decision between what is a remix and what is a new composition can be entirely arbritary. Ryan Francesconi wanted to explore this decision by inviting some of his favorite musicians to remix a song from one of his RF releases. The result is this compilation.
The smell of spring ticked my senses months ago, but the lingering effects are still there. Rain-soaked streets erase the bitter memories of a forlorn winter, and give hope for the coming summer. Each new flower that blooms is like another skeleton released from the closet, set free into an unknowing world. Around every corner is something unexpected, and each surprise opens doors to new possibilities of excitement, love, and life. So many things begin in spring for a reason. - Excerpted from a review of RF, Falls by Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis
Familiar Trees (Time Release Records) (Fabiola Sanchez and Ken Negrete) make subtle catchy chamber-pop which captures the enthusiasm of childhood discovery and the thoughtfulness of being. www.timereleaserecords.com
.Tape. (Spa.RK, Nature Bliss) (pronounced dot tape dot) is the alias of Spanish musician Daniel Romero. A mixture of toy-pop, low- budget bedroom songwriting, post-folk landscapes and electronic lullabies. www.ambulatore.com/.tape.
He Can Jog (Fork Series, AudioBulb) is midwestern electronic musician Erik Schoster who routinely brews up a lovely amalgam of clicks and scrapes that leave you humming his melodies. RF asked Erik what he sampled to make the beat... the answer... Crushed Cheetos. www.hecanjog.com
Sora (Plop) (Japanese for "sky") is the alias of Kyoto musician Takeshi Kurosawa. Music box melodies, xylophones, tinkling pianos, combine with jazz and bossa nova. homepage.mac.com/s_ra
Greg Davis. (Autumn, Kranky) Gorgeous drones meet sharp attacks, evoking the natural world and the mechanised. Grit and fluidity, a perfectly realised meeting of found sound and ramshackle instrumentation. www.autumnrecords.com
FilFla is another new alias from the Tokyo based musician Keiichi Sugimoto, who is also known as Fourcolor with his beautiful outputs from Plop, 12K, Apestaartje, and Cubic Music. www.cubicmusic.com
Sawako (12k, and/oar) is a Japanese sound sculptor who understands the value of dynamics and the power of silence. Once through the processor named Sawako, sounds in everyday life field recordings, instruments, voice and electronic sounds float in space vividly with a digital yet organic texture. www.troncolon.com
Midori Hirano (Noble) is pianist and computer musican based in Kyoto. Her debut CD will be released from Noble in September 2006. www.midorihirano.com
RdL (Spekk) is a collaberation of Mondii and Naph from Tokyo. Their folk-inspired remix is based around a recording Ryan Francesconi made of his mother singing to his niece. www.spekk.net
Thank you for the add. I love your sound. It is a sound full of life. I feel that my soul is filled with power when I hear it. I come to hear it many times.
Imperium Dominium would like too thankyou for being in our realm of sonic musical vibrations, we wish you the best and will check back with yours very soon & thankyou very much for the add ~¨‘°º Imperium º°‘¨
