I Am a Foreigner

Artist and musician Robin Storey has been experimenting with found sound and ambient soundscapes since the early 1990s. Rapoon's I Am Not a Foreigner finds him in a highly abstract mode, creating nine ethereal (and yet sometimes quite abrasive) meditations on the idea of foreignness. The album opens with "Breakfast in Mesopotamia," a strange juxtaposition of gentle keyboards à la Brian Eno circa 1975 and twisted samples of Arabic singing — each in a different key, naturally. "Machine Tongue" is a spacious composition that combines hints of North African drums and eerie ululations to create a sound that invokes images of ghostly dervishes spinning on a dusty plain. Several tracks, notably "Yarsut" and the stunningly beautiful "Dusk Moon," rely heavily on drastically twisted samples of choral singing, and "Horizons Endless" prominently features what sounds like a disgruntled android playing a jawharp. The album's only real disappointment is "Endings in Rain," which is both too long and too devoid of ideas. Overall, though, this is a fine example of what ambient music can be at its best — lovely and at times even soothing — but complex and challenging enough to engage the attention for more than a few minutes.