Robin Rimbaud

Robin Rimbaud (born 6 May 1964) is a British electronic musician who works under the name Scanner due to his use of cell phone and police scanners in live performance. He is also a member of the band Githead with Wire's Colin Newman and Malka Spigel and Max Franken from Minimal Compact. Rimbaud is also a music/art critic, multi-media artist and record producer.

Rimbaud borrowed his stage name from the device he used in his early recordings. Like Boris Policeband, he picked up indeterminate radio and mobile phone signals in the airwaves and used them as an instrument in his compositions.

Early life Born in Southfields, London, Rimbaud was interested in avant garde literature, cinema and music while growing up. He was trained in piano from a young age and was exposed to the works of John Cage by his piano teacher at the age of 11. In his late teens Rimbaud recounted having listened to a copy of Brian Eno's On Land while his stereo equipment inadvertently picked up signal interference of a conversation over CB radio.

When he was a teenager his family was bereaved when his father was killed in a motorcycle accident. Later he attended Kingston University in Surrey, earning a degree in English (BA).

Career While attending university, he formed a musical project The Rimbaud Brothers with fellow student Tony Rimbaud, releasing cassette editions in the early 1980s, later becoming Dau Al Set with the addition of Chris Staley.

Rimbaud released the Peyrere compilation cassette album in 1986, featuring the work of Nurse with Wound, Derek Jarman, Current 93, Coil and Test Dept. That same year, he composed the soundtrack to a short film A Horse with No Name, directed by Phil Viner, shown at the London Film Festival.

Around 1992, Rimbaud came into possession of a scanner — having bought it from a friend who needed money — and began to experiment with integrating intercepted conversations into his music. For 2003, he installed a permanent installation in Raymond Poincaré hospital in Garches, France as part of the bereavement suite Channel of Flight.

He contributed a chapter to Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture (The MIT Press, 2008) edited by Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky. In 2010 Rimbaud working with The Post Modern Jazz Quartet on Blink of an Eye with a very subtle touch, embedding his sounds into those of the New York jazz ensemble seamlessly as critics observed.

In 2013, Rimbaud dueted with Alexandra Strunin on the song "Robot" from her EP called Stranger released on 29 October 2013.

In 2015, Rimbaud collaborated with textile designer Ismini Samanidou on the "Weave Waves" project for the Sound Matters exhibition produced by the UK Crafts Council with David Toop. "Weave Waves" comprises two textile pieces whose patterns encode recordings of the artists' breathing (the larger piece) and ambient city sounds from London and Manchester (the smaller piece).

In 2023, Rimbaud remixed Kenneth James Gibson’s track Small Triumphs And Deep Disappointments for the remix album Further Translations on Gibson’s label Meadows Heavy Recorders. Also featured on the album is Jack Dangers, Brian McBride, Christopher Willits, and others.

Political views In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, Rimbaud signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few."

Selected discography Albums (as Robin Rimbaud) Sub Rosa Live Sessions (Sub Rosa, 1996) The Garden Is Full of Metal (Homage to Derek Jarman) (Sub Rosa, 1997)

Albums (as Scanner) Scanner (Ash International, 1993) Scanner 2 (Ash International, 1993) Mass Observation (Ash International, 1994) Sulphur (Sub Rosa, 1995) Spore (New Electronica, 1995) Delivery (Earache, 1997) StopStarting (Audio Research Editions, 1998) Sound for Spaces (Sub Rosa, 1998) Lauwarm Instrumentals (Sulphur, 1999) Diary (Sulphur, 2000) Technorama (Digital Vision, 2001) 52 Spaces (Bette, 2002) Nemesis: Original Score For Random Dance Company (Bette, 2002) Warhol's Surfaces (Intermedium, 2003) Double Fold (rx:tx, 2003) Reason by Heart, Sleep by Twilight (BineMusic, 2005) The Radiance of a Thousand Suns Burst Forth at Once (Steamin' Soundworks, 2005) Messe, Macht Des Klangs / Klang Der Macht (KunstRäume Leipzig, 2005) Consegnaci, bambina, i tuoi occhi (Horus, 2009) Rockets, Unto the Edges of Edges (BineMusic, 2009) In-Between (Bette, 2011) Voyager: Amongst Others (Atelier, 2011) Pavillon D'Armide / Amarant (Bette, 2011) timelapse/(Mnemosyne) (Bette, 2011) Colofon & Compendium 1991-1994 (Sub Rosa, 2012) Electronic Garden (BineMusic, 2014) Fibolae (Pomperipossa, 2017) The Great Crater (Glacial Movements, 2017) The Signal of a Signal of a Signal (Touched, 2019) Trawl (Aquarellist, 2020) An Ascent (DiN, 2020) Alchemeia (Alltagsmusik, 2024) The Phenol Tapes (Alltagsmusik, 2024)