Uitgebracht
February 2021
- A topsy-turvy mix of techno and post-punk from the intriguing London duo.
- I've been locked into the music Guy Gormley releases on Jolly Discs, the label he runs with Rory Gleeson, since discovering RAP's 2019 album, Export. That record was a thrilling mix of hard dance styles, soca-influenced rhythms and anemic post-punk, but even on tracks that gestured towards rave euphoria, like "No Mixer," there was something solitary and inward looking about RAP's music.
Gormley, who makes up one half of RAP alongside Thomas Bush, once reversed his sleep patterns for three days and went on a nocturnal journey, which he documented in a book of photographs. "Most of the images in the book were shot in infrared and they describe the story of the walk," he told Wonderland. "Each page [felt] like a step further down an unknown road until you emerge at the sea."
That fuzzy nocturnal journey continues on Junction, the third album from Bush and Gormley. The record's nervous system is a delayed techno kick drum, a jittery pulse that carries across over most of the tracks. Beyond that, it's an eventful journey through diverse sonic elements that always feel uniquely RAP.
The opener, "Terminal," and "Coran" explore chorale and chamber orchestra-elements—they're of a piece with the Baroque reimaginings of Bush's 2020 tape as Merula, Sleep. "Bright Blue," meanwhile, is a Dean Blunt-style dreamy rap incantation, with one of the members muttering something about Ben Sherman over a spare synth pop arrangement.
"I didn't start making any kind of music until I was about nineteen," Gormley has said about his early forays into production. "All the music from those very early days is quite compelling to me still, despite—or maybe because—it has no obvious reference or structure. Later on I went through a stage of making very straight, boring tracks while I figured out the nuts and bolts of dance music. In a way I'm always trying to get back to a playful and instinctive approach to things."
What sets RAP's music apart is the duo's ability to weave clever songwriting into styles that aren't an obvious fit. When Bush or Gormley pick up a guitar or a mic, their music defies any obvious references.
Junction's closer, "Hanjin-Manty," mixes a pounding kick and insistent chords that recall trance or gabber. But atop this madness Bush and Gormley posit a calm, serpentine post-punk tune with a pretty piano figure and a loping bassline. RAP find beauty in the liminal spaces between clear-eyed pop and 4 AM kick-drum thrum. In their hands, 200 BPM can feel languorous, while a monotone verse can be hopeful, a topsy-turvy perspective that makes their music so compelling. In RAP's world, nothing is what it seems: that detailed photograph of a tree might have been taken in the dead of night.
Tracklist01. Terminal
02. Cinel Moen
03. Iris
04. Bright Blue
05. Coran
06. Loose Connection
07. Transit
08. Naked Flame
09. Hanjin-Manty