Rashomon (ex-Guapo)

Rashomon is a solo project from Matt Thompson, ex-Guapo and, incidentally, my brother. Essentially instrumental, although voices are used on occasion, The Ruined Map (Film Music Volume 1) isn't actually meant to sound like film music at all (although it still manages to in places). The tracks are all named for art-house films, with their accompanying pieces described as "companions to the psychic states invoked by the more bizarre outer reaches of narrative cinema", according to Matt's MySpace site. Despite being very different to Guapo, you can hear that the same compositional brain is involved, with his/their trademark dissonance cropping up on most tracks, although the musical palette is far broader, encompassing the weirder end of the progressive spectrum, avant-garde noise, Weimar Germany, various folk musics, insane metal and many other varieties of oddness. A track-by-track run-down probably isn't very constructive, but expect Slayer on acid (Branded To Kill), painful MiniMoog squeals (Confessions Of An Opium Eater), and very little drumming, although Paul Westwood (hi, Paul) plays on a few tracks.

You can also expect four out of eight tracks of Mellotron madness (mine, obviously, played by Matt, as is almost everything else), with dissonant string interjections on Onibaba, Blast Of Silence and Branded To Kill, and a brief burst of flutes on A Quiet Week In The House, alongside Sara Hubrich's violin. My MiniMoog turns up, too, as what appears to be the sole sound source on Confessions..., although as it makes my ears hurt, I'm not entirely sure I should've lent it out...

All in all, this is not an album for Marillion fans, although you'd probably guessed that already. Anyone who liked/likes Guapo should investigate, though don't go expecting more of the same, and anyone else who enjoys stepping outside the boundaries of 'conventional' progressive music (how did it ever become 'conventional', eh?) should seriously think about giving this a go.