STM 037 - Scanner

“Secret Thirteen Mix 037” is a deliberate and painstakingly fulfilled cinematic type audio collage that investigates variable science fictional, dramatical and tragical scenarios by invoking expressive musical fragments. Intently selected and crafted subtly powerful records from such gifted musicians as Tim Hecker, Ben Frost, Alva Noto, Zoviet France, Aphex Twin and other masters erase boundaries between imagination and reality.

The author of the mix is Robin Rimbaud (born in 1964 in Southfields, London), an electronic musician who works under the name of Scanner due to his use of cell phone and police scanners in live performance. He has released a large amount of critically acclaimed records since early 80s and has curated numerous of projects in the field of various arts. Rimbaud can be described as an authoritative figure in the electronic music scene and above it. Our journal could write a book about the Rimbaud's talent and all the projects so that is why we invite all of you to read more about Rimbaud on the online encyclopedia - Wikipedia.

“Secret Thirteen Mix 037” is an influential musical compilation that is combined from twenty nine unique record cuts, featuring numerous picturesque audio samples from the classical movies, scanned mobile phone conversations, acapellas, television and radio recordings. Some of them are from the legends such as Peter Gabriel, Freddie Mercury, Richard Long, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Downey Junior, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Don Draper, Adrienne Shelley, Lew Temple and others. Rimbaud hasn't forgotten to include his own lasting and inspiring creations too. He has chosen an authentic concept for this solid recording: he collected compositions that start with a letter “A”. This compilation also reflects his extremely varied musical taste and influences behind his own musical idealogy. There is probably no moment when the musical line is being played solely. The wholeness is formed from many different layers merged together in the very accurate generating, editing and integrating process. The basis holds on the subtly shifting magnificent atmospheres, occasionally enriched with a nostalgic, sometimes hedonistic melodies and blurred rhythmics. Murky rustles, glitched percussions and sudden spoken-word cuts occupy a large part of the fragile top surface. The background is always full of micro activity and progressively renewing sound shapes and can be interpreted as professional piece of literature with all of its emotional convulsions. It is a high quality timeless chef d'oeuvre.

“Secret Thirteen Mix 037” is like a dynamic Eve Aschheim's abstract painting “Lurker” where delusive motion in the desolate hall creates a fictive reality that exists between multiple frameworks. In the theatrical perspective it can be described as a transformed and modernized view to the Gaston Leroux novel “The Phantom of the Opera”. The examination behind the developed musical emotion could lead the intellectual listener to the most unpredictable cellars of subconsciousness.