Ryan Francesconi (RF) is a SF-based experimental/glitch-electronica/ambient artist who composes and improvises electro-acoustic pieces in which digital fabrications organically dance, hand in hand, with ethereal sonic manipulations of strings, horns, guitar and voices. Francesconi implements all this with real instruments tons of reverb and a software of his own, publicly available from his company Spongefork.com (talk about creative ways of making sounds)."Springs" is a compilation CD featuring 10 of his tracks reworked by nine of his best music pals (Familiar Trees, .Tape., He Can Jog, Sora, Greg Davis, FilFla, Sawako, Madori Hirano, RdL). Obviously, as you can easily imagine, the boundaries between remix and re-make are blurry, to say the least, but that's what happens (and what is supposed to happen for it to make sense anyway) when you cut loose of the outside influence and you let them run with it. This ambitious and maybe a tad self-celebrative release, has more to offer than just new versions of old stuff. The common denominator of all songs can probably be considered the way sounds are treated in relation to their originating source and spacially positioned with reverberation. The arrangments are sophisticated and the dreamy approach of the material blends well with the resulting magma of sweetened airness and cloudy spring freshness.