Rapoon — The Fires Of The Borderlands
The two discs come in six panel digipak, & this takes in cave painting artwork from the albums original issue, along with some minimal texts. The album first appeared in 1998 on Release Entertainment( the ambient/ noise sub-label of respected & long running us metal label Relapse Records)- which between the late 1990’s & early 2000’s released more than a few classic/ respected releases from the likes of Merzbow, Robert Rich, Lull, The Haters and many others.
The originally album consists of eleven tracks- these each run between the four & thirteen minute mark, with most of the tracks been fairly short ( by ambient standards). The whole album has a running time of sixty seven & a half minutes, and is created with a mix of synths, morphed & melted instrumental elements/ vocals.
Unlike a fairly large potion of this project work most of the tracks here remain beat-less, and are mainly built around moody & slowly shifting multi layered drone constructions, which play out simply yet very atmospherically effective slow-mo melodies. Fitting the albums title & the red desert like cave paintings of the cover the vibe here is very mystical, times-less, and vast in it’s sound like the sonic soundtrack to a treking across some vast & people-less desert landscape. With the mood subtle shifting from bright yet hazed vast-ness, onto more moody & dark, through to slowly majestic & mysterious.
Though-out the whole albums length one remains totally captivated by the journey Rapoon takes you on over it’s 11 tracks, and each is perfectly sequenced into the next- meaning the best way to hear this album is in one sitting.
The second disc takes in a 38 minute long live set- this was recorded in San Francisco on the 20 July 1996. It comes in the form of a single lengthy track that offers up slowly morph slice of trance inducing ethno-ambient. The track moves from dense & mysterious weaves of swirling ambient, compressed & locked down tabular percussion, and a chirping/ glittering textures. Through to stretched ethic flute simmer that it’s pulled into rich & vast drifts of ambience. Onto dense blends of locked down ethnic percussion which are edged with moody yet compressed ambience, and beyond. On the whole it’s a consistent & attention keeping long form live set, that nicely compliments the original album.
I’ll have to admit I’ve found what I’ve heard from this project in the past more than a little mixed, but as it’s so prolific that can’t be help. But there is little doubt that this certainly is a classic of the ambient/ drone genre, and one of the best things I’ve heard from Rapoon. The reissue came in a edition of 500 copies, which isn’t really many considering how highly this album is thought of in ambient circles- so I recommended if your going to picking it up, I’d do it sooner that later, as I don’t think these will last long!.