The one between Abul Mogard and Rafael Anton Irisarri is a collaboration between two musicians with a not very dissimilar vision of ambient-drone music. Abul Mogard is Serbian and began his career as a musician very late, after having worked all his life as a metalworker. Rafael Anton Irisarri needs no introduction as one of the main musicians of the ambient electronic scene.
“Impossibly Distant, Impossibly Close” is their first collaboration, born after meeting at the Condeduque Contemporary Culture Center in Madrid in 2023. It is interesting how in this work of only two songs, both the common points and the differences between the two musicians. If the initial parts recall the static movements of Abul Mogard, the evolution pushes – minute after minute – more and more towards the stylistic solutions of Rafael Anton Irisarri.
“Waking Up Dizzy On A Bastion” (nineteen minutes) is a sensational example of fruitful interaction between two musicians who – starting from a short melody – manage to dialogue (almost in a question and answer mode) and make the music evolve in one direction totally different from the starting one. If the beginning and the end are completely different, the lack of a clear line of demarcation between the parts is striking: everything slowly changes to finally become (from about minute eleven) a typical Irisarri composition, a new “Empire Systems” or a new “Indefinite Fields”, effectively touching the same chords and the same infinite abysses as the two masterpieces of the American composer.
“Place of Forever” (seventeen minutes) is a bit of a scaled down version, maintaining the same structure (with the addition of guitars), but not managing to reach the same final emotionality.
Unlike other collaborations that do not seem to add anything to the discography of the individual musicians, the union between Abul Mogard and Rafael Anton Irisarri seems to enhance the individual qualities and could promise future developments.
05/15/2024
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM