A supergroup of sorts, Risil is the moniker for a series of collaborations between a slew of musicians which include Guillermo Herren of Prefuse 73 and Savath & Savalas, Zach Hill of Hella, Tyondai Braxton of Battles and John McEntire of Tortoise. Over the course of some time, the collaboration resulted in enough material to culminate in this, the first of three volumes to comprise the evolving casts' output.
Too often, supergroups seem to realize themselves as a disappointment, an over-distillation of the contributors' various styles into something that neither pushes the members' discographical depth nor reveals much about the other projects with which they are associated. With little room for development and the expectations of already loyal fans, the artists are pigeon-held into producing something that will neither harm their more consistent group's reputation nor displease anyone who they have already won over.
Needless to say, that is not the case here. With such a large number of musicians contributing (eleven are given credit here) there is little room for any one individual's voice to be central, making this a truly collaborative and, as a result, exciting effort. With such diverse representatives, the sound here is instead based in a loose, improvisational style that hardly forsakes the members' pasts, but certainly creates a new environment for them to make music.
Organized by date of recording, the album tracks about nine months of music making, from the brief New Years day psychedelicism of "Implicate"—whose bent guitar tones and computerized stretches weave an unsettling view of the coming year—to "Oxygen Path," the longest track here and one steeped in tough to pin down rhythmic patterns creating a dense, mulch-like underbelly to the eventual breakbeat drumming that drives it forward.
In between, the unit has some wonderful moments, many of which are found in cooperation with Eva Puyuelo Muns and Alejandra Deheza's vocals. Treated delicately by various other members, the vocals serve to ground the work's busy nature, allowing for the group's full potential to come to the fore. Pieces like "There Has to Be" and "This Air I Breathe" take on a Reichian quality as they turn repeated phrases into the rhythmic basis for the rest of the work.
The counterpart to the opening "Risil Intro," "Risil Outro" closes the disc in fitting fashion, representing much of what the group seems to seek. With delicate instrumental finesse the sound resides somewhere between computer music, techno, post-rock, krautrock and drone well represented, but also overcome. Without sacrificing any of their individual capabilities, the unit creates a sound that is far more concerned with collaboration than demonstration. The result is a loose and unstructured feel, but one well conceived in its overall sound. In other words, it lies exactly where this sort of collaboration should, neither forsaking nor conflating its members' previous output, but infusing each with further depth and appreciation.
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