Francisco Meirino

musique concrète | noise | sound art

FAILED PROMISES / ATTEMPTS AT APOLOGIES

Released in October 2026 by Purge Records 

as a cassette & digital files

Two raw and intense pieces that feel like they’re constantly about to fall apart. "Failed Promises / Attempts at Apologies" turns malfunction, noise, and space into something genuinely visceral.

focus on nothing

get up and fall again

give up

one knee on the ground

and there you are

damaged beyond all possible repair

Music: Francisco Meirino - electronics, field recordings

Artwork: Niccolò Nozza (IG: nomennescio______)

Mastering: Alessio Barbuzza (IG: halba. sound/blackhole.studio.2023)

Tapes: Tape Factory (IG: tape_factory_)

REVIEWS

By Harsh Critic

An album from Francisco Meirino today, a sound artist whose work explores gear failure, magnetic fields, electrostatic noise and all manner of sonic oddities, recontextualising and honing them into wonderfully rich compositions. Two tracks, roughly fifteen minutes each. Let's get stuck in.

Failed Promises is a full-frequency, textural exploration, with wide panning and a bewildering array of sounds. This isn't just a contact mic shoved through a DOD Death Metal and a Boss Metal Zone. It's rather chirpy and tweety, full of oscillations, from the subtle crunchy bed to the beautifully sculpted highs. Everything wavers and rolls, creating an almost tidal sensation.

Then, unexpectedly, vocal samples and intimate recordings of someone simply going about their business appear. Little moments twist into something resembling a fly buzzing past your ear. Elsewhere, eerie suggestions of lurking psychological horror creep in, but the threat never quite materialises, leaving a faint, lingering discomfort.

Attempts at Apologies opens up another curious world. Twisting sounds like a rusty cello bowed for one brief, sustained note. Squelchy signal frequencies mingle with mechanical spiderlings tapping away at a glass typewriter. There's tension here, an angry warning buzz that threatens to erupt.

Single-hit percussion loops emerge, joined by soft, wet plops, only to be interrupted by sharp, distorted blasts. Piano-string stabs, stones rolling across wood, glitchy cuts. All of it leaves you questioning not only the original sources (mine are entirely imaginary!) but the intentionality behind every sound and its placement. Eventually we're led out by soft crinkles and the powdery crunch of snow.

This is Sunday morning noise. Exactly what I want when my brain is mourning the impending loss of the weekend and the return to work, before I kickstart the day. I've a lot of time for releases like this: texturally and sonically rich, spacious, intricate and experimental. This one totally hit the spot. Lovely stuff.

Grab it on tape or download from Purge Records.

…….

By Matthew Samways in Discipline Mag

Francisco Meirino’s Failed Promises / Attempts at Apologies operates at the unstable intersection of precision and collapse. Across two compositions, “Failed Promises” (14:42) and “Attempts at Apologies” (14:57), sound becomes a material under pressure: something to be manipulated, examined and pushed beyond its intended function. Rather than approaching electronic music as an exercise in control, Meirino explores the possibilities that emerge when control becomes uncertain, turning the failures of technological systems into a framework for sonic investigation.

Failed Promises / Attempts at Apologies by Francisco Meirino

The music sits within Meirino’s ongoing exploration of intricate textures, spatial panning and physical intensity. His interest in equipment malfunctions, electromagnetic interference and electrostatic noise places him in a tradition of experimental sound practice where the distinction between instrument and environment is deliberately unsettled. The sounds produced by a system are only part of the equation; equally important is what happens when that system behaves in unexpected ways. The resulting aesthetic is concerned less with conventional musical development than with the properties of sound itself, its density, movement and capacity to destabilise perception.

The two-part structure gives this investigation a conceptual tension. “Failed Promises” suggests an initial rupture, while “Attempts at Apologies” implies the uneasy aftermath. Their almost identical durations establish a balance without promising resolution. The second piece does not, by its title alone, suggest that the first can be undone. Instead, the pairing frames sound as a process of confrontation: a movement between breakdown and response in which neither position offers a definitive conclusion.

Meirino’s approach is particularly compelling in its relationship to sonic detail. His practice draws attention to the behaviour of sounds that might otherwise be dismissed as technical defects or unwanted interference. By taking these materials seriously, he challenges the assumption that electronic sound should be polished into submission. Noise, instability and spatial dislocation become compositional possibilities in their own right, exposing the fragile boundary between deliberate construction and accidental occurrence. The physical intensity associated with his work is therefore not simply a question of volume or aggression; it emerges from the close examination of sound as an unstable, unpredictable material.

This perspective gives the release’s accompanying text a clear relationship to its musical premise. “focus on nothing / get up and fall again / give up / one knee on the ground / and there you are / damaged beyond all possible repair,” writes Meirino. Its terse, fragmented language reads like a sequence of instructions stripped of any promise of success. The final line refuses consolation, suggesting that recognition and repair are not necessarily the same thing. The text does not need to explain the music so much as establish a parallel with its underlying concern: what happens when a process reaches the limits of its intended purpose?

Issued by Purge Records, the release is available digitally and as a limited cassette edition of 40 transparent dark-grey copies with white UV printing. The physical edition includes Meirino’s text as an insert, extending the relationship between the musical and conceptual elements. Artwork is by Niccolò Nozza, mastering by Alessio Barbuzza, and tape production by Tape Factory.

Failed Promises / Attempts at Apologies is a study in the unstable relationship between intention and outcome. Its strength lies in the questions raised by Meirino’s treatment of sound: how much control can be exerted over a system, what becomes audible when that control breaks down, and whether failure can reveal something that deliberate construction conceals? Rather than offering a reassuring passage from damage to recovery, the two compositions hold that tension open. The result is an uncompromising statement from an artist whose interest lies not in making systems behave, but in discovering what they disclose when they do not.