Rafael Anton Irisarri is an Ibero-American artist, composer, curator, producer, and mastering engineer. His influence resonates throughout contemporary electronic music. Born in Puerto Rico to a working-class family of Basque, Spanish, and Italian immigrants, and raised between San Juan and the U.S. mainland, Irisarri’s early experiences of cultural diversity and displacement echo throughout his creative output. His music is a distinct alchemy of introspection and nostalgia, exploring the emotional interplay between technology, sound, silence, and the physical locations they inhabit.

Emerging from Seattle’s early 2000s electronic music scene, Irisarri signed with Ghostly International in 2008, releasing his debut as The Sight Below, the now-classic ambient techno album Glider. Under this alias, he introduced a soundworld that blended hazy guitar textures with submerged rhythms. It set the tone for a prolific artistic and audio engineering career spanning drone, post-classical, and experimental music.

In 2010, Irisarri founded Black Knoll Studio, a respected hub for boundary-pushing mixing and post-production. After relocating to New York’s Hudson Valley in 2014, he has established himself as one of the most sought-after mastering engineers within the global independent music community. Known for his refined ear, earnest approach, and meticulous touch, his credits include seminal artists like Terry Riley, Ryuichi Sakamoto, William Basinski, MONO, Devendra Banhart, Grouper, Emeralds, and Julianna Barwick.

A restless collaborator, Irisarri moves through the global music world with a kind of quiet magnetism, drawn to kindred spirits working at the blurred edges of sound and image. His connections with Abul Mogard, Agnes Haus, Arovane, Balmorhea, Benoît Pioulard, Biosphere, Christina Vantzou, David August, Florence To, James Heather, Joachim Spieth, Julia Kent, Kevin Richard Martin (aka The Bug), KMRU, Leandro Fresco, Lusine, Mabe Fratti, Markus Guentner, Oliver Coates, Pantha Du Prince, Penelope Trappes, Pepo Galán, and Steve Hauschildt stretch across continents and disciplines — collaborations that unfold through live performance, remixes, and shared acts of sonic exploration. Over time, Irisarri’s work has become a connective tissue within ambient and experimental music, its influence felt as much in texture and tone as in spirit. Known for his instinctive sense of space and polyphony, he approaches production, remixing, guitar treatments, and sound design not as separate crafts, but as extensions of the same language — one built from resonance, decay, and emotional gravity. Beyond his own Black Knoll Editions imprint, his music has appeared on dozens of influential labels worldwide, securing his place as a vital and trusted presence within the broader sound art community.

Throughout the last decade, his albums have drawn inspiration from metal, dream pop, and avant-garde music traditions. His palette is richly varied, featuring tape loops, bowed electric guitar, cello, piano, synths, and voice. These elements combine melody and harmony with expansive washes of thick, enveloping distortion and noise. His compositions are shaped by 20th-century art movements, reflecting the contemplative and refined forms characteristic of modernist painting and sculpture. Paying homage to the New York school of minimalism, he employs repetition, particularly in the form of ostinato, as a quiet act of resistance, challenging linear expectation and emphasizing subtle shifts in tone, duration, and perception. Irisarri’s body of work has earned widespread acclaim from leading outlets including the BBC, Electronic Sound, MOJO, NPR, Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, Rockerilla, SPIN, The Quietus, The Wire, and Uncut.

As an international touring artist, Irisarri delivers captivating live sets often staged in unconventional venues: art museums, churches, synagogues, castles, planetariums, derelict factories, disused hangars, and even subterranean tunnels. Preferring these alternative venues to traditional clubs or bars—where background chatter and distractions can dilute the experience—he chooses localities where structures and sound converge to heighten the emotional and physical impact of his work. Irisarri breathes new life into these often overlooked or historically significant spaces through sound, transforming decay into vibrant resonance and stillness into a heightened sense of presence. The reverberation of his music within ancient stone walls and forgotten buildings invites audiences to fully engage their senses. By creating a dynamic dialogue between audio and architecture, his performances offer a rare opportunity for listeners to meditate on their connection to memory, place, and time—moments that linger long after the music ends.

Key live appearances include headlining concerts at Arnolfini Arts (UK), Basilika St. Aposteln (DE), Berghain (DE), Cafe OTO (UK), Casa del Lago UNAM (MX), Casa Montjuïc (ES), Centro de Cultura Condeduque (ES), Centro das Artes, Casa das Mudas (PT), Centrum Beeldende Kunst (NL), Chan Centre For The Performing Arts (CA), Dark Mofo (AU), Detroit Electronic Music Festival (US), Donaufestival (AT), Evolutionary Arts Hackney (UK), Fylkingen (SE), Galleria Civica Di Modena (IT), Gray Area Foundation For The Arts (US), Heiliggeistkirche (DE), H.R. MacMillan Space Centre Planetarium (CA), Haus der Elektronischen Künste Basel (CH), Institute of Modern Art (AU), Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts (AU), King’s Place (UK), Kunstencentrum VIERNULVIER (BE), Kunstwerke Institute For Contemporary Art (DE), La Société des arts technologiques (CA), Le Guess Who? (NL), (le) Poisson Rouge (NY), M'ARS Centre For Audiovisual Art (RU), Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology (PL), MITO SettembreMusica (IT), Mole Vanvitelliana (IT), Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo (IT), MUTEK (CA), MUTEK MX (MX), MUTEK ES (ES), Opera I Filharmonia Podlaska (PL), Pałac Branickich (PL), Planetarium De Nantes (FR), Planetárium Praha (CZ), San Fedele Acousmonium (IT), San Salvatore Bastion (GR), St. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Church (GE), Seattle Art Museum (US), Sónar (ES), STUK Arts Center (BE), Synagoga Pod Białym Bocianem (PL), Teatre El Musical (ES), TodaysArt (NL), Unsound (PL), Uppsala Konsert Och Kongress (SE), UT Connewitz (DE), Vinterviken (SE), VIVO Media Arts (CA), WORM (NL), and Zuiderstrandtheater (NL).

“A magical mix of music, space and atmosphere. Field recordings and sound arts mingling with composed works.” - BBC Radio (UK)

“It is a beautiful storm that breaks with choirs of benevolent ghosts singing - before slowly setting the audience back on the ground, surprisingly better rested, more contemplative, and satisfied than before… leaving the silence he induced, in absolute applause.” - KEXP (USA)

"Endlessly sorrowful melodies rippling through the church, growing louder and layered with deeper bass and hissing white noise. The woodwork of the church shudders, creaks, and groans under the resonating sound waves, submerging the audience as well. What a colossal sound, and how this music strikes at the emotions." - de Volkskrant (NL)

“There's always an urgency of action implied by these rumblings and murmurings of something beyond all of us.” - The Wire (UK)

“Every single title, every single fragment of [his] work hits directly at the center of our heart, it addresses with extreme power the hidden and forgotten part that still quivers and struggles in the depths” - Rockerilla (IT)

“Irisarri is unafraid to use his mastery of the wordless soundscape to put forth messages that reflect the bleak and uncompromising times we’re living in.” – Popmatters (USA)

“Slowly shifting drone motifs latticed with fuzz…Irisarri’s work carries a particular sobering weight” - Electronic Sound (UK)

"Irisarri cultivates a reliable air of preoccupied melancholy" - Pitchfork (USA)