Rapoon - Hotel Bravo [Zoharum - 2020]Rapoon is the solo musical project of Robin Storey, formerly of Newcastle industrialists Zoviet France. Storey started the project in 1992 and since then has become something of a prolific artist in the ambient electronica field, releasing innumerable albums over the last 29 years, for a number of notable labels. This latest release has found its way to Zoharum recordings who continue to release some of the most interesting experimental electronic music. Hotel Bravo is inspired by memories of a derelict abandoned hotel that Storey knew from his youth. He wondered about the conversations that had taken place there, the movies watched and the dreams of the guests. These thoughts have been condensed down into just under an hour of music for Hotel Bravo.
Opener, "Hotel Paris" is a multi-layered experience, however the whole thing is overlaid with a poetic spoken word section that reflects the lost memories of visitors to the crumbling hotel, almost like memories that linger in the fabric of the building, like in Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape. "When the Chimes End" is up next and the stuttering beats of the opener are gone, replaced with more drones and other general ambient sounds, percussion is kept to a minimum but punctuates the track from time to time in short but brutal stabbing bursts. The ominous sense of decay that clusters around the dilapidated old hotel really does come through in the music, like some sort of sonic representation of images of it. For "A Few Sitars More", unsurprisingly takes the listener down a different, yet similar path, featuring both sitar and tablas to great effect. That same melancholic atmosphere pervades but the instrumentation is representative of a different experience and most probably a different dream. "Oyamma" encapsulates that same relationship between memory and music that The Caretaker has become synonymous with, you can’t help but pick up on those reminiscences of the past within the piano lines that serve as a reminder of the hotel’s past glories and musical performances. In "Our Name" and "On Our Path" follow on with more traditional sounding ambient drones, less unique than the previous tracks but no less effective. "In Lights of Gold" features some achingly beautiful piano and washes of synth, no less reflective than the rest of the album but just different enough to keep the listener interested. Final track "In Cement Garden" opens with the sound of birdsong and the blustering of wind, the whole track is built around found sounds and features a solemn piano mantra that plays throughout before eventually fading to nothingness leaving just the hissing static that saturates the entire track. It’s the perfect way to close the album, giving the whole story closure as it appears to take the listener back to the modern day and the sad, sorry state of the once grand hotel.
Overall, the whole album is a great exercise in reflection and introspection, the music aches with past glories and good memories and takes the listener on a journey back into the mists of time. Thoroughly enjoyable throughout. Darren Charles
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