Year: 2024
Label: Zoharum

Here’s a release that might result in some pretty controversial reviews. Or perhaps the reviews won’t be controversial, because so few reviews spark any kind of genuine reaction these days, but I am sure this release will be quite divisive and even to some extent polarizing. Or maybe I’m just seriously out of my depth.

UK ambient act Rapoon, behind which is Zoviet France founding member Robin Storey, is a name of some repute. Just one look at the lengthy discography (Discogs lists a whopping 98 albums!) and the amount of labels who’ve released Rapoon’s material proves that. Obviously enough of people consider this to be good music, including the good people at Zoharum, who I have nothing but respect for.

But still, I am going to say that this is without a doubt the most infurating, the most enervating, the absolutely most horrible release I’ve reviewed in my entire 20+ year career as a makeshift music writer.

The main reason is how massive this release is. Dream Circle (In Three Phases) is a 3 disc re-release of Rapoon’s debut album Dream Circle (1992) which also contains their 1996 album Recurring (Dream Circle) which, according again to Discogs, is Rapoon’s ninth album, as well as a third disc of enitely new material made in the style of the above two albums, with the same sound banks.

That translates to well over three hours of music, which is a lot to take in. Especially when it is in the minimalistic, repetitive, looping style Rapoon employs on these albums. In essence, Rapoon’s tribal ambient takes the form of rather short percussive loops displaying an Indian influence that are repeated for the entire duration of the tracks with no or only minimal variation. Over these are layered understated layers of ambient synths and the occasional vocal sample. The compositions are structurally understated, even to a point where there is little to no progression or evolution within a track.

And there’s three hours of that.

You’ve really, really gotta like this kind of music to be able to stomach it in one go.

Admittedly, this re-release by Zoharum isn’t necessarily meant to be taken in in one sitting. It’s three different albums, composed and recorded independently several years apart. So doing what a reviewer is wont to do, to take it in as some kind of whole, is in many ways counterproductive and maybe even altogether beside the point. Ergo, unless you’re using this stuff for meditation or something like that, it’s probably best to enjoy each album separately at separate times.

However, even doing so, I found each individual album quite annoying in their repetitive nature. Grating is the word. The unmodulated percussive loops jarred like a nasty headache. The vocal samples, when used, repeated like the throbbing pain of a migraine. In essence, this just isn’t my kind of music. I like ambient just as much as the next guy – or, considering the less-than-mainstream status of ambient, probably more than the next guy – but the style of Dream Circle isn’t my thing. I much preferred Time Frost, which we reviewed earlier this tear.

One CD of this kind of material I would write off as not my cup of tea, three CD’s become a pain in my hind parts.

However, considering this is where Rapoon started and have since then gone on to amass releases in the hundreds, obviously many people do like this kind of stuff. If you’re one of those, feel entirely free to disregard everything I’ve said about the music itself, but do take heed of what I said about the sheer massiveness of Dream Circle (In Three Phases): to take it all in in one sitting demands a special kind of person.

Visit Rapoon on their official website, Bandcamp or Facebook