Rapoon ‎– The Kirghiz Light

From the rain drop rhythms of ‘Jerewat’ to the desert dryness of ‘Into Light,’ Rapoon continues to extend the vocabulary of contemporary world music. Nurturing original audio sources from a bedroom studio with a small collection of instruments from far-flung places, the results of this ‘acoustic sound painting’ are transmutational. Hidden inside the tracks, whose titles possess phonetic allusions to illusory worlds, ‘Feathered Skies,’ ‘Saffron Fires,’ ‘Omnizdum,’ are beautiful messages evoking mystery and provoking madness.

The Kirghiz themselves were an ancient Asiatic tribe of wanderers, banished from their homeland, who hunted a place of enlightenment they recognised inside their dreams. Rapoon’s own audio nomadism, literally a process of possession and reprocessing, crosses comparable terrain. He achieves a curious lexicon of sound, carving states of clear consciousness and moments of infinite perception. Almost as if he has stolen the ashes from Kirghiz fires and re-arranged their powdered dust to remake their lives. As if each one sound contains all others. This double CD release will captivate your imagination.

(written and published 1995)