The Sight Below is an American ambient techno/shoegaze act from Seattle, Washington. Its main member is the American post-minimalist composer Rafael Anton Irisarri.
Sam Valenti IV signed The Sight Below to his Ghostly International imprint in 2008 after listening to a demo tape. A promotional EP No Place for Us was soon released by the label as a free MP3 download on August 26, 2008.
The Sight Below debuted its live set at Seattle's KEXP radio station on September 20, 2008. The in-studio session was recorded and is available on Ghostly's website as a podcast (GhostlyCast #18). A well-received performance followed at the Ghostly International showcase during Decibel Festival. These performances paved the way for an extensive European tour that saw the artist perform at 18 different cities in the continent, including Unsound festival in Krakow, Poland, EME Festival in Lisbon, Portugal, S.O.Y. Festival in Nantes, France and TimeZones Festival in Bari, Italy.
The Sight Below's debut album Glider was released in the United States on November 2008 and January 2009 worldwide. It is available as both a physical and digital release. The album was very well received by the press and music community, including praise from Radiohead's Thom Yorke, who charted "At First Touch" on his January 6, 2009 "Office Chart" posting on the band's website Dead Air Space.
Murmur EP followed in 2009, including remixes by Biosphere, Eluvium and Simon Scott (of Slowdive).
The Sight Below's second full-length, It All Falls Apart, was released on April 6, 2010. It features music written with the aforementioned Simon Scott and a cover version of Joy Division's "New Dawn Fades" (with guest vocals by Tiny Vipers). Described by All Music Guide as "impeccably made ambient thump-and-drone", Pitchfork Media called it "A beautifully bleak cloud of sound" while XLR8R magazine gave it a 9/10 ranking and praised it as "an astounding range of visceral sonic possibilities…a hurricane passing over an ocean, gathering heat and force while simultaneously cooling the waters below."