Rapoon is the name Robin Storey adopted in 1992 after leaving :zoviet*france:, the Newcastle band he had co-founded in 1980 and worked with for twelve years. The split was amicable; :zoviet*france: continued under Ben Ponton with new collaborators. Storey's solo work as Rapoon has run for more than three decades and is one of the most prolific bodies of work in UK dark-ambient and tribal-ambient.
The method runs through loop-based percussion (often built from the non-Western samples Storey had developed during the :zoviet*france: years), drone textures, field recording and a cinematic-narrative voice. The Bureau reads Rapoon as distinct from the :zoviet*france: that has continued without him: Rapoon is more melodic, more cinematic, more openly engaged with ethnomusicology than Ponton's continuing work has been.
The catalogue is vast. Storey releases one to three new full-length albums a year; the count runs to 60+ albums plus EPs, soundtracks, collaborations and split releases. The labels have been Soleilmoon (the American imprint that carried the early catalogue), Staalplaat (the Dutch partner through the 1990s and 2000s) and the European-and-American network around them.
The founding album Dream Circle (Soleilmoon, 1992) opens the catalogue. Vernal Crossing (1993), Cidar (1994) and Easterly 6 or 7 (1994) build out the early-1990s voice; Recurring Dream Inside A Dying Man (1996), What Do You Suppose? The Vulture (1996) and Messianic Ghosts (1998) carry it through the late 1990s. The 2000s and 2010s keep the output flowing; Errant Angels (2014) and The Magnetic Mountain (2017) are among the more recent landmarks.
The Cold Spring partnership from the 2000s onward links Rapoon to the UK industrial-specialist scene; Soleilmoon has handled American distribution continuously since 1992. Staalplaat and adjacent European imprints (Auf Abwegen, Klanggalerie) carry the catalogue across the continent.
The Bureau's reading: Rapoon is filed at Tier I as one of the most prolific solo careers in UK dark-ambient and tribal-ambient. The thirty-year body of work, the 60+ album catalogue and the long partnerships with Soleilmoon, Staalplaat and Cold Spring carry the weight. Rapoon sits between the post-industrial :zoviet*france: line Storey co-founded and the cinematic / fourth-world / ethno-ambient lineage; the contribution to UK ambient and experimental music is among the most documented solo careers the Bureau holds.