Various Artists- Loop Messiah [treetrunk 317]

AN UNAUTHORIZED TRIBUTE TO RAPOON BY VARIOUS ARTISTS

Why pay tribute to Robin Storey’s Rapoon? As a listener, Robin’s music was immediately interesting to me, because drone music as a genre was something I hadn’t yet heard. Soon, I became captivated by this conversation between sounds– samples interacting, some looped, others making unique or shorter appearances.

Technically, then, this was musique concrete– or largely that. It was also listenable– very “musical” in a traditional sense. Like with Zoviet France, Robin’s Rapoon tracks pulsed along with the best of the minimalists. They also showed me that world sounds and “Western” sounds could interact, and that beats did not have to be mathematically regular.

In creating new songs, Rapoon broke a lot of rules I thought existed for music. But this was done in such a compelling and pleasing way. I was very fortunate to collaborate with Robin briefly in the early oughts, and his remix of the samples I chose, the “Robin Storey Transit Remix”, remains a favorite.

What could be more fitting than a tribute to Rapoon? It is unauthorized, as Robin is busy and I did not want to bother him or ride his coattails unnecessarily. I did want to see what my musical peers would come up with in regards to songs resembling, or more generally, paying tribute to, Robin’s. Here we have these tracks.

Some sound quite like Rapoon. Others use the artists’ own techniques to capture the spirit evoked by Rapoon. There are loop constructions, industrial sounds, ambient sounds, world samples, and songs with a more typical song structure. All remind me of Robin in some way, and are of a quality that I find acceptable.

I hope that you will enjoy these diverse tribute songs as I have, and that they will provide a vehicle for further appreciating Rapoon’s work.

Special thanks go out to T.G. Mondalf for his support throughout this project, and for his outstanding work on the cover art.

Loop Messiah at Archive.org.

Filed under: Uncategorized