Member Since: 24/06/2006
Band Website: http://are-f.com
Band Members:
Influences: 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.
Opus Zine
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.
Smallfish Records, UK
"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.
Chain DLK
Record Label: Odd Shaped Case
Type of Label: Indie