MUSIC WONT SAVE YOUĬommencer cette chronique m'a fait réaliser à quel point Glacial Movements était passé sous mon seuil radar depuis longtemps. È il ritorno a una declinazione oscura e opprimente dell’immaginario ghiacciato, officiato da Storey all’insegna di una foschi scenari tra scienza e fantascienza. In mezzo, scorre una torbida ambience sottesa a istantanee granulose (“A Sky Beckons Down”) ed evocazioni allucinate (“A Prophecy Lies Under”), che via via scolorano in soffi arcani, proiettati da una dimensione temporale aliena (“Ancestors Talk In Lands Of Darkness”). Il retaggio post-industriale di Storey si percepisce distintamente nei due monoliti che aprono e chiudono “Song From The End Of The World” e che insieme ne costituiscono circa metà della durata, incapsulata tra la claustrofobia surreale di “We Travelled In Waves” e le cimmerie evanescenze della conclusiva “The Sky Dances In Green”. Proprio l’immaginario ghiacciato ha riportato l’artista inglese a pubblicare sull’etichetta romana Glacial Movements, nove anni dopo “Time Frost”, destinandovi un lavoro di plumbea inquietudine ambientale. La fine del mondo evocata dal titolo del lavoro che segna l’ennesima tappa della sconfinata produzione di Robin Storey sotto la sigla Rapoon non è un concetto astratto o fantascientifico, ma qualcosa che viene dalla notte dei tempi ed è rimasto per millenni incapsulato sotto la calotta polare artica.
However, in the subsequent spins your chronicler started to familiarize again with Rapoon’s unique ability in generating highly individual soundscapes while retaining the most important feature of his art. Admittedly, a bit of perplexity and a mute “mmmhh” had prevailed at the outset. More than anything else the voice – apparently utilized in a mix of natural timbre and harmonized pitch transposition across several tracks – furnishes the music with traits of unconsciousness and flexibility at once. The trademark loops are as always essential, yet the listener gets occasionally surprised by strikingly “normal” occurrences (for example, simple piano figurations and barely processed samples and/or presets). Still it’s a gripping statement in its own peculiar way, in that it offers no mnemonic handle to clutch at and no comparative light whose halo might suggest interpretations different from its sheer existence as a sonic object in a definite context. Indeed, in terms of immediate gorgeousness it does not even compare to Storey’s finest hours. Songs From The End Of The World is a fascinating album for reasons disconnected from a mere sheen factor. All of the above explains why, every time that the occasion arises to check what Storey is doing, we’re all for it in the name of a fundamental respect that has never vanished in spite of a declared preference for the older material.
Heaven knows if he remembers the letters we exchanged over a lengthy span in the first half of the 90s, at the early stages of Rapoon’s cycle. Then, of course, there’s the constant presence in our listening life: both Zoviet France and Rapoon appear quite frequently among the resonating ectoplasms populating our daily trips (no, it is not meant in a lysergic acceptation).
If this is true, that alone could be the reason for utter admiration. Legend has it that Robin Storey spent a number of years of his youth in complete silence.
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