Scanner, The News Of The World & The Art Of Listening In by Luke Turner, The Quietus:

Robin Rimbaud - AKA Scanner - once trawled the airwaves recording ‘found’ telephone conversations. He discusses his controversial work, and remembers when the News Of The World tried to buy his archive of recordings.

“Back in the days before digital mobile technology, landline phonecalls could be surprising affairs. You’d pick up the receiver and be able to hear, faint and distant, the sound of someone else’s telephone call. As voyeur, you were presented with the moral question of whether to hang up, or else keep listening in to this unexpurgated, uncensored confessional. Generally, most of the conversations would be mundane, but the very act of listening in felt uncomfortable, with a strange and dark allure. It was this that Robin Rimbaud explored in his musical practice during the 1990s, when he used readily available technology to intercept telephone calls, redeploying these field recordings into his work. This can be heard to fascinating, unsettling effect on the Scanner 1 album, where conversations about sheep castration and work troubles hover alongside sex lines, sirens, and concert recordings over watery, unsettling rhythm and sonic constructions. It is like listening to London breathe. Recently, the Quietus saw a tweet from Rimbaud saying that the News Of The World phone hacking scandal reminded him of the time a journalist from the late rag called him up to try and purchase his archive of “found” phonecalls. The Quietus dropped Robin Rimbaud a (non-intercepted) line to find out more…” Read more >>