theibcdaily executive summary 17 The storytellers


Opening a space in your mind


Robin Rimbaud


Musician Region: UK


Interview by George Jarrett


How would you describe what you do?


Composer? Musician? Artist? I am not sure. I am not a sound designer, and sound artist is always too abstract. Experimental or exploratory composer means you are not always following the lines, but there is still real music there.


How do you retain your independence when so many others struggle? I’ve always ensured that I am in control of most of the things I do, so I have never had


managers or record companies. I put myself into a position of great risk in the sense that what I like is not doing the same thing each time. A lot of my work is collaborative – used by dance companies – and I work on commercial projects, films, visual artists and museums. I seem to be on the end of a phone line when people are stuck with something. I am a kind of fast-moving response team.


Did you need to learn to read music?


I tried to learn when I was 12, and I am still a rubbish reader and writer, but I work with an arranger and he helps me do things. I can play keyboards and guitar sufficiently well to do what I do. I have a very good harmonic ear, and I play in a rock band [Githead]. That is the


“I have always been intrigued by


projects that don’t follow a pattern”


Born in London in 1964, Robin Rimbaud is an experimental composer performing under the name Scanner. Aged seven, he documented family dinners and holidays in sound and has been challenging conventional means of storytelling ever since. Recent projects include a commercial for Sprint phones, work with the Royal Ballet and with Radiohead drummer Phil Selway, plus helping Brian Ferry solve a creative problem.


only time you see me in a traditional role.


How does new technology impact on art?


A lot of my work has been about making people listen to the world around them. We live in a world where we recognise sounds – a tree falling, rain, car crashes, doors closing – and we now have access to potential with a completely open question, which is what can follow? Particularly with audio synthesis there have been ways of making sounds that were never otherwise imaginable. Technology not only enables, it opens up a space for your mind. A lot of what I do is artificial in a way. It is digital. These sounds have never existed.


What can Scanner do with


two sequencers? Within these I use a combination of samples of things I have recorded, as well as synthetic sounds and keyboards. The technology has allowed us to invent a new world. It also allows access, which is really important. People have complained that this kind of software can make it easy for people to make music. Is that a problem? It does not make good music automatically.


You were working on a piece with real woodwind sounds plus recorded samples of the wind. What were you planning?


I slow down and process it, and it becomes this kind of abstract texture. There is an authenticity about it. Electronic sound comes with no history. It is almost born there and then.


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