Time is an important aspect in my work. There are references and connections to time running throughout the body of my work from the first to the last.

Early influences included Can and Neu, Stockhausen and Cage. These gradually gave way to the music that I was discovering myself which was more in line with Eno and Hassell and extreme experimentalists like Throbbing Gristle and Test Department.

I was a founder member of the band :zoviet*france: who are generally regarded as amongst the pioneers of the post-industrial experimental genre and who have influenced many more mainstream bands in the following years.

My own work has been noted as having a unique style and individuality and has itself fed back into more mainstream genres in the form of commissioned sample libraries, collaborations and re-mixes, and film and installation work.

As a continuing practitioner in the visual arts I do not draw a clear distinction between the two mediums. The work in both areas is inter-related and cross-referenced. This is perhaps best illustrated by referring to my earliest releases, which were vinyl LP's encased in a succession of unlikely and impractical "sleeves". This served at least two purposes; one being to demonstrate that the "object" was equally as important as the music contained in the medium. (These sleeves were all hand-made and hand-printed on a variety of materials including hessian, hardboard, aluminum, roofing-felt, ceramic boxes etc. and have since become collector's items as "art objects".)

The second purpose derived exactly from the "punk" ethos of doing it yourself and the "fuck you" attitude embodied within punk. (We had been told that it was impossible to make these sleeves in any commercially viable quantity and were determined to prove the critic's wrong.)

The third purpose, of course, was that it set our releases apart from the norm.

Whenever possible I have carried this practice over into later works and continued to place equal emphasis on the artwork included with a release and the object itself, with CDs encased in specially designed, and often hand-made, packaging. The purpose, once again, is to make something "special" and to elevate it beyond the usual defining parameters. Subsequently they have become objects of much greater significance to people than they would have been had they been released in ordinary cardboard sleeves or crystal cases.

The definition of the genre that I work within is one that is also open to interpretation. I think of my work as "soundtrack" music and as such it remains open to the inclusion of whatever style I see as relevant. This also allows me to include narrative occasionally e.g. "Tin of Drum" includes narrative pieces written and performed by myself. These owe something to David Lynch and Twin Peaks.

A visit to the real Twin Peaks during an American tour prompted me to later write the pieces which were imaginary spoken statements given to the FBI concerning the whereabouts of the narrators on a date some forty-five years previously. The point being that this would be an almost impossible task, yet all the people "interviewed" managed to give accounts of the day in question. It didn't really matter if the stories were true or not, the narrators were all glad to have been asked as it somehow gave some kind of meaning to their lives.

This is reflected in the statements that they make which include details and insights into their lives, as they judge them to be. In this case these characters (like Becket's) judge their lives as essentially pointless and filled with regret.

The "Tin of Drum" in the title is a reference to my own search for some comfort whilst in a situation that at times seemed pointless and wearisome. In the middle of an exhausting and demanding tour where I missed my family and home my "happiness" devolved down to feeding my (then) last remaining addiction - tobacco. After running out of the rolling tobacco that I had brought with me from Europe I had been reduced to buying awful, unsmokeable American blends and was growing more and more agitated and depressed. Then at an unpromising gas stop I wandered into the small store and there alone on the shelf behind the counter was a solitary tin of Drum rolling tobacco. (My all-time favourite.) It suddenly became the Holy Grail of salvation; I could almost see a blazing aura of light around it. My body jumped for joy and once again I was confronted with the question "what do we seek from life" and what makes us "happy".

We can search for truth and meaning and enlightenment yet seemingly "bliss" can be attained with a hand-rolled cigarette of Dutch tobacco and a cup of Italian espresso.

Reflections on the human need to attach some kind of "meaning" to life could serve as one definition of what my work is about.

Critical reviews have been largely positive e.g.:

Perfect:It's moving, beautiful and sometimes dark and disturbing: (Review from Amazon.com of "Fires of the Borderland" July 14 1999.)

:there is an almost divine atmosphere to be found here. Divineness and isolation are the two words that capture Rapoon's music best. Vital Weekly (116)

"Some have it and some don't. Robin Storey, both a founding member of :zoviet*france: and the mastermind behind Rapoon clearly has it. Everything I have heard from him is distinguished by its striking consistency and clarity of purpose:it is the choices Storey makes that sets him apart." Bill Tilland /Alternative Press.

These randomly selected reviews are typical and quite flattering yet it is the contact established with individuals through music that has proved the most rewarding. A recent contact from a Middle Eastern filmmaker requesting permission to use some of my music in a documentary she was making which told of the historical refugee status of her people proved both humbling and uplifting.

As an atheist I am particularly intrigued by the need people demonstrate to find some system of faith to adhere to and dismayed by the intolerance these systems exhibit towards each other. My work also reflects upon the nature of "what is real" and how far we define our own reality. In an age where information has never been more accessible there is a blurring of the distinctions between truth and reality. What is not real can be made real, or to be more accurate its "realness" can be added to by reference.

For example in the book "Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon a character refers to an epic poem written by one of his countrymen, which is heroic and inspirational in nature. This (fictional) poem is repeated in full and forms a backdrop against which the present troubles in the book are reflected, (the World War 2 conflict.)

I took the title of the poem (" The Khighiz Light") and used it as the starting point for an epic piece of music that described the struggles and plight of an imaginary tribe in the southern Russian states. This was partly as a reaction to "New Ageism" (in which past tribal cultures are invariably depicted in idealistic terms) and partly against the oppressive measures once again being undertaken in this region.

":much of The Kirghiz Light would stand comparison with grander and more ambitious crossover music - like that of say, Popul Vuh":(The Wire #142)

In a more light-hearted case I used a tape of a lecture on the existence of aliens as a basis for a CD that examined the need that humans demonstrate to believe that we are not alone. In the lecture the speaker gives the name of an alleged alien ambassador to Earth who was captured in the States in the mid 1950's. The Ambassador's name is given as Ho Krll.

As the speaker goes under many aliases (To avoid capture by the CIA/ FBI :of course) I could not obtain permission from him to use the tape so I stated in the text that permission had been given by the said Alien ambassador. His name is also on an MCPS form awaiting his share of the royalties.

Strangely almost every single review of this record wrongly attributed the name of the speaker as Ho Krll.

My work is both serious and humorous, often straying into the anarchic with collaborative projects like Hank and Slim, (a fictitious pair of C&W old timers who pioneered experimental, electro-ambient C&W in the late 50's early 60's. Their careers fell apart when they were blacklisted by Nashville in 1962 due to drug abuse and press allegations that they were really lesbian sisters trapped in men's bodies, thus bringing the whole C&W genre into disrepute. They have recently emerged from being holed out in Obscurity Texas to release an album of their groundbreaking archive recordings and to pursue new careers as militant environmentalists and Installation artists.)

Over the past twenty-odd years my work has percolated down to a relatively small, but worldwide, audience. From the outset I have tried in my work to stand aside from current trends and fashions and to produce instead music which reflects the world as filtered through my own ideas and experiences.

It is music from the rim.

It stands in isolation not out of any choice or romantic notion but because the edges interest me more than the cosy centre.