Search - Rapoon :: The Fires of the Borderlands

Storey's definitive opus

dronecaster | Baton Rouge, LA USA | 12/02/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Robin Storey, the British artist who goes by the moniker Rapoon, has emerged in the past decade as an important composer/musician of atmospheric/technology-based tribal music, much like his American counterpart Steve Roach as well as a dozen or so other artists working in the same arena. With albums like "Vernal Crossing" and "Recurring (Dream Circle)", he created mind-bending tapestries of minimalistic percussion patterns and quasi-melodic drones fused with occasional doses of well-placed white noise, an approach much in debt to his 12 year stint with ambient-industrial pioneers *zoviet-france* from 1980-1992. Though most of his works are certainly worthy of critical acclaim, "Fires of the Borderlands" is the album that will be eventually acknowledged as his masterpiece.His most atmospheric work yet, Storey has started to use percussive elements more and more in the background. Rhythm is still discernable in pieces like "Talking to a Stick" but becomes less of a standout on "Snake of Earth", where a swirling combination of metallic drones and what sounds like a highly processed steel drum motif take shape. "Omaneska" is both the longest and most breathtaking track, its choral underpinnings refering to the works of Ligeti and seems to reflect an expansive desert landscape, but this is not the desert musings of Steve Roach. Instead, Storey's ruminations seem to reflect more of an Asiatic mystique: case in point, the track "Looking...not finding" reminds me of the early music of Paul Horn (most importantly "Inside the Taj Mahal"), where Horn combined exquisite flute solos with equally exquisite vocals. Here, Storey has done the same, except without the superior acoustics of the Taj Mahal but with an equal sense of sublimity, achieving a sense of grace few others within the electronic music realm have done before. Now, if he would only reunite with *zoviet-france* (even if it's only to record one album), we could expect the impossible to occur..."

Refreshingly "ethno-ambient" gone right.

dronecaster | 06/11/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"when i bought this cd in ninety eight i didn't think that it would become a staple to my collect. it has been the main sleeping texture in my life for almost two years straight (that and Asphalt by In the Nursery.) i still have not gotten sick of the album. I can listen to it on repeat for hours and lose all concept of time, something that i can't say for most albums."

Deep, resonant beauty

Matthew D. Mercer | Chicago, IL United States | 01/13/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This release from Robin Storey (Zoviet France) is full of deep, reverberated atmospheres. The music is thick and dense but never too dark. The result is a soothing nighttime mantra. Beautiful!"