Long-time producer and Swiss artist Ripperton delivers an LP full of surprise for ESP Insitute
Living in and amongst the scenery of Switzerland certainly shapes your outlook on life and provides food for thought, especially when it comes to expressing yourself and hitting the notes that are close to your heart.
Whilst the land of watches, bankers and mountains conjures up many images, there is little doubt about its underlying beauty. When Swiss artist and veteran producer Ripperton got in touch with NYC/LA based label ESP Institute to share material he’d been working in the shape of a mix tape – label boss Andrew Hogg aka Love Fingers felt compelled to mould the body of work into separate titles, and form this stunning LP.
“Sight Seeing” is a 15 track excursion tinged with sumptuousness, gathered together from Raphaël Ripperton’s thoughts and experience of life as a working dj/producer. As someone who has spent a fair portion of his life on the road, returning home to the relative calm of his native surroundings has played a large part in keeping his feet on the ground. Over the last few years, he has increasingly spent time stepping outside of his current reality to ground himself – in a world of extreme highs and lows. He describes the collection as a series of postcards to himself: messages from his subconscious recorded to tape, capturing the melancholy moods of Mondays as soundtracks that have often followed his weekend journeys.
Without any real intent or agenda, “Sight Seeing” glides seamlessly through Ripperton’s innermind without much care for the world of the dancefloor or the hustle and bustle of city life, and is all the better for it. The collection shifts between icy peaks and warms rays of sun, and the spectrum of breeze that envelopes between. Undoubtably, this is an album which will wear an Ambient/Electronica tag (for better or for worse) but when the craftsmanship holds such detail and the result captivates, why not revel in the moment where a long standing artist spreads his wings and delivers something quite unexpected…
