Reviews:

Press Release (Soleilmoon July 1, 1996)

Rapoon is Robin Storey, a founder and former member of :zoviet*france:. Over the last four years he has released four full-length CDs, a double CD, two seven inch singles and a DAT (Digital Audio Tape), and has contributed to several compilations. Those familiar with the music of his former group will be surprised by the different directions he takes in this solo project, although echoes of :zoviet*france: can frequently be heard.

"Darker By Light" is the third and final installment in the Rapoon trio to be released by Soleilmoon Recordings. "Recurring (Dream Circle)", released in April, was the first in this series. "Errant Angels" followed in May. Each of these releases presents Rapoon from a completely different angle. While the first CD was a look into the past, and the second was a snapshot of live improvisational performance, "Darker By Light" is an entirely new album, meticulously recorded and engineered in a studio setting, with all the attention to detail that's expected. The music on "Darker By Light" is both rhythmic and ambient, and like the earlier CDs, flavoured with Indian and other Asian touches. The hypnotic and mesmerizing structure are like nothing else being produced today, although many will draw parallels with label mates Muslimgauze and O Yuki Conjugate.

This aggressive release one-a-month schedule is crowned with an extensive Canadian and US tour, beginning in Toronto in early July. A complete itinerary will be announced soon.

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As co-founder of :zoviet*france:, Robin Storey drove ambient noise into new territories; as Rapoon, Storey continues a tradition of making abstract, investigative sounds. From harsh industrial beats to faint murmurs of cadence, percussion fills Darker by Light. The first track's synthesized arrhythmic pulse is unsettling even while it tries to soothe. The rest of the release exudes similar impressions of displacements and distended time, a challenge fully met by disc's end. While too acerbic to fulfill most definitions of ambient music, Rapoon creates fields of intangible solace within its pulsating machinations.

review by Alan F. Rapp
Wired (5.10 - September 1997)

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Robin Storey, spaced cadet and man behind Rapoon has produced what is for me his most interesting release since 'Raising Earthly Spirits', which was released by Staalplaat a while back. (The first track on 'Raising Earthly Spirits' is called 'Alchiva' and is THE Rapoon track as far as I am concerned. It is ten minutes long and opens a lot of doors down that long corridor leading to wonderland.)

'Darker By Light' has a similarly ritualistic quality to it, starting with a bunch of Tibetan monks growling before breakfast. The blurred, eccentric rhythms so characteristic of Rapoon smudge their way through, dragging delay trails like jet streams behind them as they are stirred into this muddy pond. Midrange frequencies linger like silver snail smears on a cold morning. It's like watercolour paints which are allowed to trickle and blend into each other, creating ,by chance, new shades, new shadows. I enjoyed the sequence of tracks on the CD too...there is a definite sense of 'motion towards' and when it's over a certain feeling of having arrived. This CD is far, far superior to the other Rapoon product which came out more or less as at the same time titled Errant Angels. Errant Angels is an audio document (let's be kind here!) of a pirate radio broadcast of a live performance by Mr. Storey somewhere in England and which I guess, will soon end up in the bargain bins. Sod the Angels, get Darker.

review by The Square Root Of Sub
Vital Weekly (46)

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Almost mechanical in nature, rhythmic loops form ominously humming patterns. Occasional beats; other times it just seems percussive because the loops are cycling fairly rapidly. Most tracks, like Winter's Edge, drone quietly, while others are somewhat louder, though never downright noisy. The whole looping thing naturally leads to repetitiousness, but in this case it works, adding an extra trance-like quality to the somber atmospherics.

review by Link O'Rama (aka David Opdyke)
AmbiEntrance

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As the title would suggest, this one is perhaps the darkest, least percussive, most ambient of the Rapoon works. The cover art is a earthy, brown and tan water colour, inside and out, lending the sound this sort of organic effect. Darker By Light moves and flows like the tide of a warm ocean at night, the wind blowing softly overhead, mist rolling in from land. Distant, sonorous resonations give a gentle surprise at all points along this discs "journey". Then one finds the music pulling up into a reflective, melodic pattern, subtle yet surgical, going straight into the heart for the space of a few beats. This phenomenon occurs several times during this disc.

review from the Manifold Records catalog

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Absolutely fantastic album that begins on a track which features emerging ambient soundscapes over a big drum heartbeat, slightly accelerated, with the encroaching mist of synths and whooshes gradually taking up more of the mix with a very atmospheric mix of celestial, spacey, ethereal and mysterious. As the CO goes on, the rhythms take much more of a back seat and by about half way through are virtually entirely absent as the ever traveling mass of synths, celestial choral voices/synths, electronic textures and booming bass undercurrents, all largely free of any particular structure and one of the most haunting yet solid examples of their unique brand of essentially space music that you will hear and just as good as anything else they've done.

review by Andrew Garibaldi
CD Services, Dundee