reviews:

Press Release (Fario)

The Fario label was created in 1998 by the staff of the french magazine Fear Drop. The concept behind Fario is the meeting : collaborations between two artists. Each record shows two halves created separately and a common track, a moment to share views or to oppose feelings. All tracks are previously unreleased. Rapoon is the alias of Robin Storey, co-founder and former member (until 1992) of the seminal ambient / postindustrial band :zoviet*france:. As we can hear from many :z*f: and and Rapoon’s productions, Rob Storey shows a genuine approach to dreamy sounds, a magical touch which awakens remote rhythms made of stone, wood, rain, pebbles… (In the two long solo pieces he wrote and performed for this release, we can also hear (and live) glitch sounds, playing this ritual game). His air is full of forgotten pieces of melodies, orange drones and vegetal vibrations, gently stupefacient. Since the eighties, french musician Désaccord Majeur has been creating strange sound entities, fragments of undiscovered worlds, mixing ethnic parts and instruments, natural sounds, wet loops and forgotten languages. His sound movies are like labyrinths, folding their ground and warming the fresh air. He recently added discreet dub basses and then made his landscapes even less definable, crossing many places without pointing any. Désaccord Majeur fashions the country of our dreams, from rocks to insects, from air to water, in a celestial movement.

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When writing about music it is hard to avoid to compare one thing with the other. And it's never fun, I know. Everybody wants to hear that their music is unique and unheard before. But to compare one thing to another also serves another purpose. If the Rik Publik likes band A, he might also like band B, because they sound like band A. A band that sounded like Rapoon, at least in the past, was Desaccord Majeur. Pseudo tribal ethnic elements, bathing in loads of reverb.

The Fario label, who specializes in releasing CDs that are have some unique tracks by two artists and one collaborative piece of music, backed Rapoon and Desaccord Majeur together so maybe we can see if they sound alike. Rapoon, aka Robin Storey, former member of :zoviet*france:, but since eleven years building a strong body of solowork, plays his rhythms by using stones, wood, peebles, adding tons and tons of delays and reverb on top of them and create a solemn atmosphere of sounds. Majestic and atmospherical, but sometimes it becomes also a cliche of it's own. Desaccord Majeur has three lenghty tracks on this CD and his rhythms comes out of a box - a drumcomputer to be precize. Jerome Maudit, for he is Desaccord Majeur, built clever rhythms on his drumcomputer, spices them with samples and synthesizer sounds. It all sounds nicely done, but it's also a bit sterile, clinical and remote: it never grabs you by the balls. Their joint piece by Rapoon and Desaccord Majeur combines the best elements of both. The clinical rhythms of Desaccord Majeur and the heavenly atmospherics of Rapoon. Ok, so maybe Desaccord Majeur doesn't sound like Rapoon when confronted with the two, despite some similarities.
That makes this joint release into a nice effort.

And by the way: Fario is part of the excellent French written magazine Fear Drop, of which just issue ten was published, including stories of Thomas Koner, Savage Republic, Oren Ambarchi, Chris Watson and more. And if you don't know what it sounds like, a CD with thirteen tracks is also included.

review by Frans de Waard
Vital Weekly

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Head-spinning collisions of ethno-ambient rhythms and post-industrial ambient. Twenty minutes of new pieces by Rapoon, about thirty by Desaccord Majeur and one long track collaborated by both. Desaccord Majeur, veterans of the Euro-cassette age, put a very interesting spin on base material Robin Storey generates. Intense, visual pulses and cuts run out along lines laid down by Rapoon. Rapoon melts galloping patterns of Desaccord Majeur into dreamlike movements part collage part total ambient background. The eventual result will make the Rapoon listener feel right at home, this is far more engaging than 'What Do You Suppose...', 'Navigating By Colour' or 'D-Lem' , just a very interesting new manner and color washed over a brand of epiphany we all love. I must say that it strikes me very similar to early period Muslimgauze, that stilted, taped, ethno-beat sound but with a slightly lo-fi electronic edge to it. The entire affair reminds me of early Zoviet cassettes, Muslimgauze and of course, Desaccord Majeur. Great third-world dreaming soundtrack.
review by Vince Harrigan from the Manifold Records catalogue.