Rashomon - The Ruined Map (Film Music Volume 1)
SKU
MIRRORS 701
This limited edition of 500 copies is by Matt Thompson, who was the co-founder of Guapo, along with Dave Smith and who left the band after recording Black Oni with them. This is his first post-Guapo work.
"Rashomon is the latest project of Guapo founder member Matt Thompson. New album “The Ruined Map (Film Music Volume 1)” is a bewildering mix of prog rock, electronic noise, waltzes, East European folk, trad metal, drones, psych rock and free jazz, similar in intention to soundtrack visionaries such as Toru Takemitsu and Ennio Morricone. Each of the eight tracks is based on a different film – not specifically in the form of soundtracks, but rather as companion pieces to the psychic states invoked by the more bizarre outer reaches of narrative cinema. The ideas and filmic techniques of directors such as Seijun Suzuki, Albert Zugsmith and Hiroshi Teshigahara are applied to musical processes in the form of pans, zooms, narrative discontinuities etc."
"The Ruined Map is for the most part dark in tone, and explores cinematic atmospheres in a range of different, discomfiting ways. Sure, making a progressive/ambient album dedicated to obscure art-house nuggets is one of the loftier concepts out there in the musical spectrum, but hey, we’re talking about the work of a musician whose work is mentioned in the same breath as Magma. The Ruined Map is an expressive shot at bringing filmic feeling to dimensions of sound, and doesn’t dwell too needlessly in the realm of the inscrutable."-Dusted
"Such a brash attempt to insinuate new meaning into finished work is risky, but here it works, as the emotional benchmarks set by each film helps the new tunes aim high, often reaching their goal of illustrating how one work of art can influence another, and how the receiver of art can inject personal meaning into existing work. Thompson’s musical palette includes drone, psych rock, Eastern European folk and a little hard rock. Zithers and gongs and mellotron are mixed in with traditional rock instrumentation; everything is a proper tool when you are trying to communicate what art does to your heart. 8/10"-Digitalis Industries
"Rashomon visits the conventional sites of soundtrack masters past such as Ennio Morricone, Toru Takemitsu and Popol Vuh, but also haunted merry-go-round surrealism, Balkan wedding music, heaving prog rhythm sections, falsetto hair metal and freak-outs channelling Sonny Sharrock’s ecstatic guitar style. The Ruined Map, neither a soundtrack nor homage, is not straight-jacketed by the notion that it needs to be sensitive to or necessarily complement images. There are times when directions taken are jarring and bizarre, but there are passages where the idea of reifying cinema’s moods and spaces into sound are thoroughly explored."-Rock-A-Rolla
You can hear the music here
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