During 2025 (and probably 2026) I will be releasing several new records I’ve been crafting during the past couple years.
This waterfall will consist of 8 new solo albums and 4 collaboration records; ranging from acoustic material, soundtrack-like music and piano-based ambient tunes to free improvisation, abrasive drone rock and my latest format crush, solo prepared electric guitar.
After an intense work period at Sauerland Studios & Recording Co. in which all this material has been coming together, now that the process has finished I feel like I have arrived both at the end of a journey (artistically, personally, psychologically), and also at a new starting point.
I’d love you to listen and enjoy the material as much as I’ve enjoyed making it, and hopefully see you on the other side of this music waterfall.
Due to the state of the matter regarding record sales, etc, these releases will come out as digital only through my own record label, Holy Hoof Records.
Next are the details, cover arts and approximate release dates for all of these artifacts.
Solo
THE END TIMES
(Fall 2025)
A 25-minute long pocket opera commissioned by the Mexican label Post Records built around the concepts of climate emergency, climate justice, extinction events and the possible end of (human) times.
The eight acts of this pocket opera are intertwined in a single listening experience, and are named after the different levels of extinction of a species. Although originally composed on a 6-string acoustic guitar in Orkney tuning (CGDGCD), the final result also features piano, electric guitar, electric lap steel guitar, synths, percussion, sound processing and field recordings.
The End Times has been already broadcasted on this episode of Geografía Nacional, an experimental music radio show on Radio Relativa, but it will most likely come out on physical format sometime soon through Post Records and Holy Hoof Records in a split edition with Golden Eternity, Dylan Golden Aycock‘s own pocket opera.
[Cover photo by Antonio Turok / Layout & design by Xisco Rojo]
REQUIEM FOR A DISSOCIATED NERVOUS SYSTEM
(Fall 2025)
As its title indicates, it is a funerary oeuvre for a dissociated nervous system (my own), in the attempt of translating the processes of trauma, depression, anxiety and mental illness to sound and music so it could serve as an artistic exorcism or catharsis. It consists of 6 pieces, three of them including some form of vocals, with the collaboration of the ex-flamenco cantaor Niño de Elche and recordings of the dadaist artist and poet Kurt Schwitters, as well as the debut on record of my -then- 4 year old daughter on hand percussion instruments.
The core of this sound Kraken emerges through electric guitars, synths, violin, viola, bass and drums, as well as being dressed by bowed double bass, hammered dulcimer, a run-down mandolin, Tibetan singing bowls, ukelele, drum machines, omnichord, percussion and doorags. The burial chant that allows for everything alive to fully exist and begin flourishing from its remains.
[Cover photo by Adrián F. Balsera / Layout & design by Xisco Rojo]
LIVE AT BORDADOS SISTER
(Fall 2025)
On September 6, 2024, I played a show at one of Madrid’s last standing trenches for live music without restrictions, Bordados Sister. It consists of 6 acoustic songs from Seaward on the Waves, Transfigurations and Resistance Ragas with the helping hands of the mighty Nirankar Kahlsa on tabla and percussion, and Paulo Angulo on shruti box.
[Cover photo, layout & design by Xisco Rojo]
BEST SELLER
(Summer 2025)
An alternative score for Best Seller, a short film by Spanish filmmaker Max Lemcke. I produced this score as an exercise for a two month course on music for film in one of Madrid’s finest music schools. The resulting score consists of 6 tracks that feature piano, strings, woodwinds, synths, percussion, and sound processing.
[Cover photo by AbigailReads / Layout & design by Xisco Rojo]
FOR THE LOVE OF A HORSE
(Summer 2025)
An imaginary soundtrack for a non-existing film by a Stanislav Nikolov (sic.) that tells the story of a couple of settlers that are forced to move out of their home and on to the next valley to ensure their crops and livelihood, and the travel and transformations that this enterprise entails. 12 tracks fully structured around piano, orchestra, synths, percussion, sound processing and incidental sounds.
[Cover painting by Julio Linares / Layout & design by Xisco Rojo]
AFTER THE FLOOD
(Fall 2025)
Another imaginary soundtrack, this time conceived for a non-existing TV series. Set on a post-apocalyptic scenario where a massive flood has destroyed 2/3 of the habitable land, a woman sets out on a search for her family. 13 tracks created with a sampler, sound loops, synths, strings, processed electric guitar and piano.
[Cover photo, layout & design by Xisco Rojo]
RUBEDO
(Fall 2025)
A collection of ambient-oriented pieces; 7 tracks that feature piano, synths, strings, brass, woodwinds, sampler, percussion and tape sound processing crafted during and after a composition and creativity webinar I took with Brian Eno in early 2025.
The underlying theme of the record is the alchemical process seen as a form of artistic sublimation and gateway from the noise and superficiallity of the modern world.
[Cover photo by Pedro Devalo]
ZUHD
(Fall 2025)
A new twist on guitar compositions, revolving around prepared electric guitar recorded through the method of instant composition. Using extended techniques and textural approaches, the resulting oeuvre of 11 tracks is an album that swings from music archeology to sound art, with an underlying concept of ascetism, detachment and healing, in an attempt for a wholesome cultural and ethnomusical blend inspired by the ‘Spain of the Three Cultures’.
A new direction for my solo guitar albums, except for the opening and final tracks, where guitar loops, synths and Ney flute join the celebration.
[Cover photo by Buno Ramos / Layout & design by Xisco Rojo]
Collaborations
XISCO & PAUL
(Fall 2025)
On September 7, 2024, after months of talks and encounters, I sat with my friend and magician guitarist Paul Pèrrim for a series of live sessions of guitars in the spirit of the quintessential 1966 album Bert and John, by Bert Jansch and John Renbourn. The session resulted in a 6-song album that succeeds at capturing the mystical body of our friendship.
[Cover photo by Bárbara Vidal. Layout & design by Xisco Rojo]
EL HOMBRE CON LA CÁMARA (MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA)
(Fall 2025)
After several years performing our soundtrack for Battleship Potemkin with my collegues of Raisa, we composed a new work of live music for cinema around Dziga Vertov‘s Man with a Movie Camera, the 1929 classic experimental avant-garde groundbreaking collage of the Russian director. The live performance of April 14th, 2024 at Teatro Pavón in Madrid is the chosen one to be released as an album.
The soundtrack composed for the occasion updates this classic of Russian cinema and brings it to the present day with a material that combines post rock, electronic music and elements of chamber folk.
Personnel:
- Rufi Carrillo : electric guitar, piano
- Tomás Garrido : electric guitar
- Daniel Goldmann : drums, groovebox, sample pad
- Xisco Rojo : electric violin
- Diego Sánchez : bass, ZX Spectrum +2A
[Cover illustration by Vladimir Stenberg / Layout & design by Xisco Rojo]
THE GATE
(Winter 2025)
In the middle of the hot July days of 2025 I received the visit of improvisor and traveller Alec Ilyine, and we took it to the studio to sit down with all the acoustic instruments there (namely guitars, banjo, Mountain dulcimer, Portuguese guitar, baglamas, mandolin) and record for a whole day. 15 pieces were selected from that session, and then edited and processed at my studio. Later, all of the songs -and the album- were named using quotations from the work of the German mystic Jakob Böhme.
[Photo, layout & design by Xisco Rojo]
POPULAR
(Sometime soon?)
October 6th, 2023, saw the opening of the exhibition ‘POPULAR‘, for which a very special soundtrack commissioned by the artist and curator Pedro G. Romero and IVAM, the Modern Art Museum of Valencia, was created by the ubiquitous and hyper-experimental «cantaor ex-flamenco» Niño de Elche together with me as co-composer, instrumentalist and producer.
From scratch, we created 15 songs that wander the limits, so often blurred, between sound, music and the popular aspects of the song. From German techno to Mexican peteneras, from religious music to synth-noise, from avant-garde free improvisation to saeta, and from French piano chanson to African proto-funk, the variety and lush of these songs refuse to accept any preconceptions.
It is still unclear when the double vinyl edition will be available via Sony Music, but the songs can already be heard on the exhibition’s website.
[Cover layout by Xisco Rojo based on the exhibition’s font and design]