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CD
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GB 132CD
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Acclaimed producer (Rosalia, Lina_Raul Refree) and in-demand collaborator (Lee Ranaldo, Richard Youngs) Raul Refree returns with his second solo album for tak:til/glitterbeat. A kaleidoscopic but seamless mashup of soundtrack music, post-classical meditations, Iberian traditional elements and experimental strategies. The title, El Espacio Entre (The Space Between), alludes to its spatial, temporal, and conceptual in betweenness. The concept for the album emerged from his soundtrack for the restored early Spanish cinema masterpiece The Cursed Village (Florián Rey, 1930). Refree adheres to total creative freedom. Some pieces like "Lamentos De Un Rescate" and "La Plage" represent his first attempt at re-composition. Refree took Monteverdi's madrigal "Lamento Della Ninfa" and personally directed the performance. El Espacio Entre is a unified whole without centerpieces. Each piece functions like a specific image or disposition translated into sound. The short evocative song titles provide interesting interpretative angles. They capture the introspective nature of Refree's musical expression, which is not preoccupied with epic arrangements or grand musical ideas. Refree's approach to improvisation, composition, and production resonates with the tenets of imagist poetry. The piano sequence in "Las Migraciones Nocturnas" is unedited. It's not played on a click. The short and sweet "Lamentos De Un Día Cualquiera," a modern reimagining of baroque vocals accompanied by a processed viola da gamba and lute, beautifully captures his philosophy. Certain elements simply must be included, though, like the evanescent trumpet line in "La Plage." Recomposed madrigals coexist with hectic piano explorations ("Montañas Vacías," "Montañas Vacías II"). "La Radio En La Cocina," a pensive dialogue between lute, radio static, piano, and marimba, gradually mutates into a post-rock crescendo. The immersive piece for prepared piano "Todo El Mundo Quiere Irse Ya" suddenly transitions into the The Durutti Column-inspired guitar sketch "Casc I Pluja." It is the way he approaches rhythm, timbre, dynamics, and texture that imbues his music with a sense of intimacy. His guitar meditations ("Amanece Sin Que Nadie Lo Vea," "Lo Que Esconden") bring to mind the music of Raphael Rogiński. In "Las Migraciones Nocturnas," a Jon Brion-style soundtrack piece that disintegrates into agitated strings wailing, one can hear the echoes of his music for films. A similarly cinematic atmosphere is conjured in the composition "No Es Tan Fácil Aquí." Yet the most surprising moment on the record arises in the epilogue "Una Nueva Religión" in which a mellow organ motif unexpectedly intertwines with Darkthrone-inspired metal blast beats. El Espacio Entre is a sonic diary that may lead you to transformational events while riding the bus, train or plane, being in transit between one destination or another, the current and next version of you.
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LP
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GB 132LP
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LP version. Acclaimed producer (Rosalia, Lina_Raul Refree) and in-demand collaborator (Lee Ranaldo, Richard Youngs) Raul Refree returns with his second solo album for tak:til/glitterbeat. A kaleidoscopic but seamless mashup of soundtrack music, post-classical meditations, Iberian traditional elements and experimental strategies. The title, El Espacio Entre (The Space Between), alludes to its spatial, temporal, and conceptual in betweenness. The concept for the album emerged from his soundtrack for the restored early Spanish cinema masterpiece The Cursed Village (Florián Rey, 1930). Refree adheres to total creative freedom. Some pieces like "Lamentos De Un Rescate" and "La Plage" represent his first attempt at re-composition. Refree took Monteverdi's madrigal "Lamento Della Ninfa" and personally directed the performance. El Espacio Entre is a unified whole without centerpieces. Each piece functions like a specific image or disposition translated into sound. The short evocative song titles provide interesting interpretative angles. They capture the introspective nature of Refree's musical expression, which is not preoccupied with epic arrangements or grand musical ideas. Refree's approach to improvisation, composition, and production resonates with the tenets of imagist poetry. The piano sequence in "Las Migraciones Nocturnas" is unedited. It's not played on a click. The short and sweet "Lamentos De Un Día Cualquiera," a modern reimagining of baroque vocals accompanied by a processed viola da gamba and lute, beautifully captures his philosophy. Certain elements simply must be included, though, like the evanescent trumpet line in "La Plage." Recomposed madrigals coexist with hectic piano explorations ("Montañas Vacías," "Montañas Vacías II"). "La Radio En La Cocina," a pensive dialogue between lute, radio static, piano, and marimba, gradually mutates into a post-rock crescendo. The immersive piece for prepared piano "Todo El Mundo Quiere Irse Ya" suddenly transitions into the The Durutti Column-inspired guitar sketch "Casc I Pluja." It is the way he approaches rhythm, timbre, dynamics, and texture that imbues his music with a sense of intimacy. His guitar meditations ("Amanece Sin Que Nadie Lo Vea," "Lo Que Esconden") bring to mind the music of Raphael Rogiński. In "Las Migraciones Nocturnas," a Jon Brion-style soundtrack piece that disintegrates into agitated strings wailing, one can hear the echoes of his music for films. A similarly cinematic atmosphere is conjured in the composition "No Es Tan Fácil Aquí." Yet the most surprising moment on the record arises in the epilogue "Una Nueva Religión" in which a mellow organ motif unexpectedly intertwines with Darkthrone-inspired metal blast beats. El Espacio Entre is a sonic diary that may lead you to transformational events while riding the bus, train or plane, being in transit between one destination or another, the current and next version of you.
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LP
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GB 065LP
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LP version. 180 gram vinyl; includes download code. Raül Refree is one of the most acclaimed Spanish producers of the last decade, and tak:til/Glitterbeat now presents La Otra Mitad, his new album. Working with artists such as Silvia Pérez Cruz and Rosalía, he has been at the forefront of the so-called "new flamenco" movement. He also collaborates with rock experimentalists like Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth, but Raül's musical life doesn't stop there. He has released six previous solo albums, film soundtracks among other genre-skewing projects. It is this merging of sound worlds that makes Raül's new solo release La Otra Mitad (The Other Half) such an immersive and transportive listen. Mesmerizing acoustic and electric guitar explorations meet sampled street recordings, haunted voices and hushed electronics. The Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida said, "an artist should always try to do what he still does not know how to do." Without actually knowing this quotation, Refree's musical art seems to subscribeto Chillida's edict. In 2017, he produced two instrumental 10-inch EPs. The first of these, Jai Alai Vol.01, is mostly a collection of reflective solo guitar music, with each title named according to the instrument used on the track and the date on which it was played. The second Jai Alai volume is a different proposition, with the material coming from a soundtrack project, and the sound palette expanded to include recordings of street music, voices and a subtle electronic dimension. The tak:til release La Otra Mitad is an album that weaves together the two EPs and creates a dramatic new entity in itself. Whereas the guitar tracks included from Jai Alai Vol.01 echo the spontaneity and simplicity of Derek Bailey or Durutti Column, they are balanced beautifully by the soundtrack compositions from Jai Alai Vol.02, that make up the majority of the album. Much of La Otra Mitad is music made for a movie, Entre Dos Aguas (2018) by Isaki Lacuesta, a drama which explores the world of flamenco. These pieces are an exercise in voices found and converted into samples: flamenco singer Rocío Márquez, or El Bolita, a boy who participated in the film and spontaneously started singing in front of Raül, or vocal sketches from El Niño de Elche's Antología Del Cante Flamenco Heterodoxo (2018) which was co-composed and produced by Refree. Throughout the process of making La Otra Mitad, Raül Refree found another voice: his own; always changing and expanding in richness and open to saying, what he does not yet know.
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CD
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GB 065CD
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Raül Refree is one of the most acclaimed Spanish producers of the last decade, and tak:til/Glitterbeat now presents La Otra Mitad, his new album. Working with artists such as Silvia Pérez Cruz and Rosalía, he has been at the forefront of the so-called "new flamenco" movement. He also collaborates with rock experimentalists like Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth, but Raül's musical life doesn't stop there. He has released six previous solo albums, film soundtracks among other genre-skewing projects. It is this merging of sound worlds that makes Raül's new solo release La Otra Mitad (The Other Half) such an immersive and transportive listen. Mesmerizing acoustic and electric guitar explorations meet sampled street recordings, haunted voices and hushed electronics. The Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida said, "an artist should always try to do what he still does not know how to do." Without actually knowing this quotation, Refree's musical art seems to subscribeto Chillida's edict. In 2017, he produced two instrumental 10-inch EPs. The first of these, Jai Alai Vol.01, is mostly a collection of reflective solo guitar music, with each title named according to the instrument used on the track and the date on which it was played. The second Jai Alai volume is a different proposition, with the material coming from a soundtrack project, and the sound palette expanded to include recordings of street music, voices and a subtle electronic dimension. The tak:til release La Otra Mitad is an album that weaves together the two EPs and creates a dramatic new entity in itself. Whereas the guitar tracks included from Jai Alai Vol.01 echo the spontaneity and simplicity of Derek Bailey or Durutti Column, they are balanced beautifully by the soundtrack compositions from Jai Alai Vol.02, that make up the majority of the album. Much of La Otra Mitad is music made for a movie, Entre Dos Aguas (2018) by Isaki Lacuesta, a drama which explores the world of flamenco. These pieces are an exercise in voices found and converted into samples: flamenco singer Rocío Márquez, or El Bolita, a boy who participated in the film and spontaneously started singing in front of Raül, or vocal sketches from El Niño de Elche's Antología Del Cante Flamenco Heterodoxo (2018) which was co-composed and produced by Refree. Throughout the process of making La Otra Mitad, Raül Refree found another voice: his own; always changing and expanding in richness and open to saying, what he does not yet know.
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