Rafael Anton Irisarri (usa) / Ruhail Qaisar / Rojin Sharafi

Rafael Anton Irisarri is an Ibero-American composer, producer, and mastering engineer whose work moves through the overlapping territories of ambient, experimental, and modern classical music. Born in Puerto Rico and now based between Spain and rural New York, he first emerged in Seattle’s 2000s scene under the moniker The Sight Below, where blurred guitar textures and submerged rhythms met the skeletal pulse of minimal techno.

His sound has since expanded into widescreen landscapes attuned to memory, geography, and the emotional weight of place. His catalog spans early releases on Ghostly International to recent work on Black Knoll Editions, forming a sustained body of work that functions as an archive of atmospheres and afterimages.

Irisarri is the founder of Black Knoll Studio, a mastering house with a catalog that extends across contemporary experimental music. His engineering work has shaped recordings by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Terry Riley, William Basinski, Grouper, Julianna Barwick, MONO, and many others. Long-term collaborations with Abul Mogard and Benoît Pioulard(including three Orcas albums and multiple joint works) form a central thread in his practice.

RUHAIL QAISAR

Ruhail Qaisar is an artist from Leh, Ladakh. His current practice revolves around examining threads of local memory, mythos, and poetics through sound art, compositions, and found sculptures. Involved within various cross-genre projects since 2015, his early noise shows all over India are recalled as sonic palate-cleansers, he debuted with his concept album Fatima (2023) dubbed by The Quietus as “haunting” , released on Danse Noire featuring Dis Fig and Elvin Brandhi, with a 48-page photo book publication.

The commissioned hymnal piece for Les Urbaines written in collaboration with Gottfrid Ahman and Michael Anklin , Three Hymns of Cruelty (2022), which delved into the dynamics of Ladakhi procession music, was performed at Arsenic in Lausanne.

In 2024 his residency in Graz, Styria was spent, preparing a 36 channel third order ambisonic composition, Namkhay Rtsima / The Spine of the Sky, for the Musikprotokoll Festival for ORF (Österreichischer Rundfunk) and the Steirischer Herbst’ 24 at the Dom im Berg.

ROJIN SHARAFI

Rojin Sharafi is a Tehran-born, Vienna-based sound artist, composer, and performer working across electroacoustic music, noise, and experimental electronics. Her visceral sonic language blends analog, acoustic, and digital tools, exploring tension, rupture, and transformation. Praised by The Wire for her “thrilling, variegated” sound world, Sharafi’s latest album O.O.Orifice follows critically acclaimed releases including Urns Waiting to be Fed (2019), Zangaar (2020), and Kariz (2021). She also performs with the folk futurist ensemble HUUUM. Her work has been presented internationally, from London to New York, affirming her as a vital voice in experimental music.