Combinations 4 by Richard Francis - Room40

 

A new album from NZ artist Richard Francis is released by Room40.

10 tracks which were pretty much improvised and recorded straight to DAW recorder with a little interference. It sounds as much old school as much as honest and really down to earth approach.

The result is quite stunning and electrifying set of tracks that has both the feel of field recorded music and improvised but not in a way that free improvisation is made. It is an idiom of noise/drone ambience but with an sound art twist but because of honesty and directness it doesn't have the pretentiousness of this cliché but more raw and deeply poetic shape.

It could easily be a minimal art album or a experimental guitar album but since the careful choice of Richard's sound source it is somewhat more grounding and deeper sonic experience. Visceral and no-nonsense - a great soundtrack for existential musings or just a pure, deep listening experience.

A note from Richard...

Since 2010 all of the recordings I make and release are improvised live takes, recorded down to a stereo digital recorder with very little editing other than EQ, trimmed beginnings and ends, and the occasional layering of two tracks together.

I arrived here through spending many years prior trying to build an electrical system (which I now call the 'fugue system') that would do what I did in composition/studio work but in a live setting: combining together dozens of sounds with open feedback and generative channels, and discrete control for each. Then when I finished building that system using digital and analogue tools, I preferred what I heard and recorded 'on the fly' more than what I was doing in composition, so that system is now my instrument in a way.

In terms of these pieces I've sent, all three of the Combinations albums I've made to date are linked in the way some of the pieces have multiple sounds interacting together, becoming patterns, semi-complex rhythms or repeating motifs. There’s a bit more structure and layering to the works, if that makes sense.

credits

released December 19, 2025

Recordings made at various moments between 2017 and 2024 on the fugue system in houses around Auckland (Mt Albert, Titirangi, Freemans Bay, Maungawhau, Eden Terrace, St Marys Bay). Final mixes 2022-2024.

Mastered by Lawrence English at Negative Space

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