Kevin Richard Martin, AKA The Bug, has remixed a track by US composer and multi-instrumentalist Rafael Anton Irisarri.
Martin has turned in two reworks of Irisarri’s track ‘Empire Systems’: a ‘Wildfire Mix’ and a ‘Frozen Mix’. The latter appears on Irisarri’s new remix album, A Fragile Geography: Reworks, which is out now.
In a statement about his remixes, Martin said: “Rafael noticed my online praise of his album Fragile Geography, and subsequently invited me to remix a track from the album. When I approached my ‘Frozen Mix’ I became obsessed with the album’s beautiful title, and attempted to reflect it, with a deeply frozen, nocturnal jazz groove, which would morph subtly, repetitively, relentlessly, into a crystalline world of it’s own. [It’s] my sonic homage to Alice Coltrane and JG Ballard simultaneously I guess, as well as Rafael himself! (Or at least in my twisted mindset).
“With the ‘Wildfire Mix’ I alternately decided I wanted the melody to overwhelm and swoon instead of the previously buried position. I’ve been obsessed with the film scores of Bernard Herrman for many years, and his use of blue harmonies, so I used a literal dub mix as a way of excavating melancholy and triggering waves of oblivion. The idea, I suppose, was to try and enchant and hypnotise. Total immersion / submission. Or at least that’s what I attempted.”
Listen to both remixes below.
The remix album also features reworks by KMRU, Penelope Trappes, William Basinski, Abul Mogard and more.
A Fragile Geography: Reworks is out now on Black Knoll Editions.
