Robert Rental - Mental Detentions 2LP

I’m sure some of you are schooled on Robert Rental, his collaborations with Glenn Wallis and Thomas Leer, getting the Throbbing Gristle thumbs up and label support for the now infamous ‘The Bridge’, but this release is the piece that completes my RR puzzle!

This self released 1979 cassette from the Scottish pioneer of homespun sounds, lovingly reissued by Dark Entries as a double LP, feels like it could’ve come out on Hanson Records or Altered States Tapes in the 21st Century.

This assemblage of distinctively more abstract, slowly enveloping, oddball meditations from Rental is as effective as anything I’ve heard him record. I can’t help but compare his output to another pioneering Rob who had a similar approach to homemade synthesizer and tape works, Ohio’s Robert Turman.

It’s a pure creativity that feels in tune with, embracing of, or a precursor to post-punk, industrial, drone, noise, musique concrète, simple pop songs, motorik music, the Heldon/Ilitch/Sensations Fix fringe of euro-prog, but also is completely unburdened by the trappings of sub-cultural or institutional cliques and cliches. Not a ski mask or flowy white linen shirt in sight! — Nic