OUT OF THE BOX #22

Scanner (1996)

Out of the Box is a monthly series focusing on seven inch records. It’s an excuse to engage with my collection in a new way, as well as to write about older records and genres we don’t often cover at ACL.

OUT OF THE BOX #22
Scanner ~ hollowhead / who else is there? (1996)

We’ve previously shared our 2018 interview with Robin Rimbaud, aka Scanner on the occasion of the release of an expanded edition of 1994’s Mass Observation on Room40 (From the Archives #17). So for the latest installment of Out of the Box, why don’t we listen to some Scanner from that era.

I can’t recall when or where I acquired this 7”, but probably in a Montreal shop circa 2010. This is one of two 7”s Scanner release via Soul Static Sound that year. While the label initially focused on riot grrl and alt-rock, Soul Static also branched out into post-rock and experimental genres, a testament to the UK’s embrace of eclecticism and openness to electronic sounds that took the US another good decade or more to catch up. Soul Static Sound also released Vandal / Larson, the debut from Tortoise’s live sound shaper Casey Rice’s slept on Designer project.

The two sides of this record demonstrate Scanner’s range, though to be fair there is quite a bit of range within each single track. As Jennifer Smart writes in her review of La Fenêtre Magique (2022):

Unlike many artists working in experimental music, Scanner, aka Robin Rimbaud, has never had a recognizable sonic palette. Although his nom de plume stems from the incorporation of intercepted radio and phone conversations in early compositions, a practice he has never fully left behind, Scanner ranges widely across the landscape of electronic sound. Techno, dub, house, ambient, drone, film music and soundscape are all musical languages present in his recorded oeuvre.

That assessment rings true on there early tracks. The a-side, “hollowhead,” is quite insistent from the jump, with a prominent repeating bass line and a 4-count in the form of a beep. Filter sweeps and ambient washes drift against the steady beat, with the bass grounding the overall vibe. A breakbeat enters some way in, with Rimbaud lounging with a long ambient outro once beat drops out.

On “who else is there?” Rimbaud seems to be working with a similar process but to rather different results. The radio static and stolen voices are foregrounded: “say sorry.” Filter sweeps, a whole tone scale rises and falls, in the way often used to signal a dream sequence to audiences. If the a-side leans into techno, than we might comfortable file this side under ambient, but if you put a kick underneath (or dropped another breakbeat) it could easily be reconfigured by adventurous DJs. The searching question of the title manifests in a track that is meandering, moody, suggestive, yet never quite cohering into something distinct. Nonetheless, it has Scanner’s signature on it and thus maintains a sense of identity. Unsurprisingly, this track would later turn up on Colofon + Compendium (2013), a collection of rare and unreleased sketches described as more “telephone terrorism tactics voyeuristic ambience from the Scanner archive 1991-1994.”

The track “Hollow (Headz)” seems like it would be related to the a-side of this record, but I don’t hear much connection. Half of the 21 tracks are labeled “(Headz)”, originally destined for one of James Lavelle / Mowax Headz series that never came to be. “Tape Junk,” from the same sessions as the tracks on this 7”, features a prominent monophonic synth melody wandering against scanned voice, with beats phasing in and out, building into a tremendous fuzzy cloud of noise, just fun beautiful funny little music.

Since this is a series that emphasizes the physicality of physical media, I’ll end with some additional details. I just returned home, and dug out this 7”, the b-side of which isn’t streaming on Bandcamp, Youtube or the usual suspects. I had to move boxes around to find the record, and had a kick trying to decipher the etching in the runout: DAMONT G.DAVIE - THE EXCHANGE DMM SOUL 14 A1YEL?. YELAND ? ARO; DAMONT RADIO FRIENDLY. SOUL 14 AA1 A. Because of that final A, I was convinced that was the A-side, sending off to track down Colofon + Compendium to confirm. I also used Discogs to confirm, but ultimately I enjoyed revisiting this 7” and compilation, in the comfort of my living room.