Following up on our news announcement last year, today we are proud to premiere ‘Signals from a Distant Afterglow’, the third movement from Rafael Anton Irisarri’s forthcoming album ‘Points of Inaccessibility‘, due for release in February. Standing at the emotional centre of the record, the track distils Irisarri’s language of dark ambient into its most intimate and devastating form.
Built from slow-burning bowed strings and smouldering harmonic drones, ‘Signals from a Distant Afterglow’ unfolds with a patience that feels almost ritualistic. The piece breathes in long arcs, allowing texture and tone to accumulate gradually, each layer glowing like embers beneath ash. It is music that lingers in suspension, heavy with feeling yet restrained in its delivery.
At its heart are the vocals of Karen Vogt, whose phrases drift through the composition like a half-remembered transmission. Processed and looped, her voice becomes both human and spectral, recalling the mythic gravitas of Lisa Gerrard’s performance on Now We Are Free (as featured in Gladiator), yet reframed through Irisarri’s distinctly modern and desolate lens. Rather than soaring triumph, Vogt’s presence feels fragile and distant, as if reaching across an immeasurable emotional gulf.
The track was developed during Irisarri’s 2025 residency at Uncloud in Utrecht, housed inside the former Pieter Baan Centre. That sense of isolation and suspended time is deeply embedded in the music. Each note seems to arrive already carrying memory, dissolving almost as soon as it takes shape.
Signals from a Distant Afterglow is the album’s most affecting moment – a piece that quietly overwhelms, stirring a visceral response that sits somewhere between grief and consolation. It is the very essence of dark ambient and is a powerful reminder of Irisarri’s ability to transform minimal materials into profound emotional resonance.
‘Points of Inaccessibility’ is set for release on 6th February via Black Knoll Editions. Order a copy from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. Faded Ghosts of Clouds
2. Breaking the Unison
3. Signals from a Distant Afterglow
4. Memory Strands