Rapoon

Robin Storey's output over four decades of sound, paint and animation is staggering to consider. Dark Rivers is his 25th album release of the current decade and flows from its earliest ambient sources into this new generation of liquid sounds. Tribal/devotional elements that date from his earlier period as co-founder of Zoviet France still quaver in the synthesized chants of "This Side of Zero." Although his work lives in this digital age there is a timeless and original quality to his sound. Profound elemental tones issue from cavernous underground sources, eroding the stone in passage. Elsewhere, off-centre percussion loops suggest narcotic ceremonies taking paranoid turns. Like his blocky and symbolic paintings, Storey's sounds are stand-ins for lost cultural artefacts. Unlike analogous ambient artists like Scanner or Muslimgauze, whose work often examines a narrow band of culture, Rapoon's sound is more amorphous and expansive. It fills the shapes that attempt to define it.