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RAPOON - Cultural Forgeries

Format: CD
Label & Cat.Number: Alrealon Musique alrn 058
Release Year: 2014
Note: rare Rapoon album with special concept - pure 'acoustic' sources were later effected with delay & reverb to form one long "live" take in 17 different parts => 'Trumpet, Bodhran, Banjo, Pungi, Shehnai, Indian flute, Chinese flute, Irish tin whistle, hand bells, cello, accordion, guitar, one string slide guitar, Ukelele, Kan (Tai bamboo harmonica), mouth harps, percussion', all played by ROBIN TOREY himself....lim. 300 and almost sold out at the label; US import !!
Price (incl. 19% VAT): €14.00


More Info

"In 2013 I was asked by my friend Robert Pepper (Pas Musique) if i wanted to do an "unplugged " album. I was intrigued by the idea and agreed. I thought of ways of constructing pieces that did not involve any "processing". I wanted to make something that was essentially acoustic recordings but which were composed and arranged to give some depth and intricacy to them. I started recording some of my many acoustic instruments on a portable stereo digital recorder (A Tascam DR­05..for those interested in such things). The recorder has built in microphones , so I just used those. Sometimes I placed the recorder inside a large Bodhran to get natural reverb reflections. I listened back to the things I had carefully recorded. i listened to them again...they were ok..but something was missing... I added some reverb, delay ..back masking and ....it suddenly sounded fab to me... This album is part acoustic and part processed ..all the recorded parts are live..one take. The treatments and processing are as much a part of composition as are the instruments and the recordings...In a way I failed to make an unplugged album but I did make something which was outside of my usual work process and for that i am thankful. To simply repeat the same processes over and over seems very dull to me. Viva la Difference !

Acoustic Instruments used:
Trumpet, Pocket Trumpet, Bodhran, Banjo, Pungi, Shehnai, Indian flute, Chinese flute, Irish tin whistle, hand bells, cello, accordion, guitar (Hofner Congress 1958), one string slide guitar (nineboys wedge), Ukelele, Kan (Tai bamboo harmonica), mouth harps, percussion, voice." [label info]



"Just like Richard Youngs last week with his 'dub' record we find Rapoon here also doing something out of his usual ordinary. His ordinary would be to play instruments like a drum, or a stringed instrument and then take samples out of that and play around with those, adding sound effects and mixing these into various configurations. Here label boss Robert L. Pepper (also from the PAS Musique group) invited Robin Storey, the man behind this one-man project, to do an instrumental/acoustic/unplugged album. All of the seventeen pieces were recorded in one take, but Storey wasn't entirely convinced by the acoustic quality and added some reverb and delay when needed. It's not a lot, I think. The great beauty of this record lies in the amount of instruments used. We hear a trumpet, a pocket trumpet, bodhran, banjo, pungi, shehnai, Indina flute, chinese flute, Irish tin whistle, hand bells, cello, accordion, guitar, one string slide guitar, ukelele, kan (Thai bamboo harmonica), mouth harps, percussion and voice. Indeed, that much, and with that it comes that none of these pieces seem to be very long; long enough to get the idea across, and keep the piece going, but short enough to present a wide variety of ideas. Sometimes very mysterious like in 'Bells Temple Ask', but also jazzy in 'Donnez-Moi Une Cigarette' or 'Glass', with a smokey trumpet sound. Maybe it's not the kind of unplugged album you would expect, simply because it's not entirely unplugged, but it's surely something different for Rapoon. I'd say it's certainly a route to explore further." [FdW/Vital WEekly]