Robin Rimbaud - The Garden is Full Of Metal (Sub Rosa)

After just two minutes of The Garden is Full Of Metal, you know you're listening to a album that's bound together by an overall cohesion and energy which makes it difficult to press FFWD, not to mention STOP. This album is a shimmering, precision-science 45 minute piece of ambient homage to the recently deceased, much-missed and superbly innovative film maker Derek Jarman. It also sees Robin Rimbaud put his Scanner pseudonym to one side and prove that there's more to his music than the quirky telephone conversation samples, which the mainstream media have raved about, often overlooking the music with which they were interwoven.

A close friend of Jarman, Rimbaud provided the soundtrack for his film 'The Last of England'. He also recorded many of their private conversations and draws from these with samples layered across the album. The vocal snippets are manipulated in such a way as to be intriguing, captivating and at times touching. But the album works best when Scanner's deeply honed ambient musicianship comes into play. The second track, 'Experience' is a perfect example. This private homage to Jarman is taken one stage further with a 7 minute film, hidden away on a CD-Rom section of the album. 10/10


This review also published in: DJ magazine