The first retrospective of Scanner’s double decade of operation is due for release later this month and if the 6 minute redux (below) is anything to go by, it is essential material.

Forthcoming on double vinyl (limited to 450 copies) and digipak CD on Sub Rosa Colofon & Compendium is the first of a revisit of early original material by Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner.

The 22 tracks cover the period 1991 through to 1994 and it’s all unreleased material from that early period of his career.

Rimbaud’s recording name Scanner was born out of these early recordings where he picked up radio and mobile phone signals in the airwaves and used them as an instrument in his compositional work. And for those not as familiar with this formative work as his recent, Colofon & Compendium is likely to be a great introduction.

Scanner put together a short redux of the upcoming material.

It is, as Sub Rosa write on their site

Telephone terrorism tactics voyeuristic ambience…
An eavesdroppers delight.

Robin says of his formerly unreleased material:

In the summer of 2010 I worked through my extensive archive of DAT tapes, cassettes and minidiscs, which had accumulated since 1977, and with the help of my ever capable and patient interns, began the process of digitizing these materials. The result, over 600 hours of largely unreleased material, was overwhelming to say the least, and that was only the edited highlights, as we never touched any material prior to 1991.

Most of these recordings have never been heard before or released, though ideas, voices and samples may have reappeared in altered forms on future releases. Very little of it is ‘finished’ in any sense, it is more of a thinking process, sketches towards something else, a moment of inspiration briefly captured. At the invitation of Sub Rosa I honed down the selection to the controversial scanned telephone call works by-passing film scores, dance pieces, remixes and so on. The shorter pieces interspersed throughout the album were originally commissioned by James Lavelle for an edition of his MoWax compilation label series Headz, but for unknown reasons were never included. Two of the works, Blind Electricity and Moth Open Math, began life as remixes for other artists but then took on a life entirely of their own so were never issued in this form.

Underwater was released in an edition of 100 copies on 7″ vinyl on Syntatic Records Vienna, April 1995.
Tape Junk and Who Else Is There? were released on 7″ vinyl on Soul Static Sound, October 1996.

Scanner – Colofon & Compendium
pre order

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TRACK LISTING 2LP VINYL 22 TRACKS / CD 22 TRACKS

CD / 2LP
side A
01 The luminous past 05.56
02 Pet (Headz) 01.40
03 That’s Okay 06.46
04 Curse (Headz) 01.04
05 Connections 02.32

side B
06 Snort (Headz) 01.26
07 Underwater 04.54
08 Chewing (Headz) 01.03
09 Tape Junk 02.52
10 Closet (Headz) 00.48
11 Cavern Wall 05.33

side C
12 Anytime (Headz) 00.55
13 Humdum Talk 02.09
14 Hollow (Headz) 01.00
15 Blind Electricity 04.45
16 Flame (Headz) 00.40
17 Moth Open Math 04.34

side D
18 Scouse (Headz) 00.58
19 Who Else is There? 04.23
20 Smut (Headz) 01.21
21 Red Exile 08.48
22 Tourette (Headz) 00.55