ROCKET ROBERT – Rocket Robert

Future 1982 / Got Kinda Lost 2015

ROCKET ROBERT - Rocket Robert

ROCKET ROBERT –
Rocket Robert

Spaced-out and out of time: obscure Oregon auteur’s curio gets into expanse.

The notion of retrofuturism couldn’t bother Robert Moore less when he funded a private pressing of this home recording with the insurance money he’d received for his vintage vehicle which got damaged; it didn’t matter to the sci-fi loving artist that synthesizers’ explorations occurred in the ’60s and there was no place to venture to two decades later. Such spirit became a fuel for pieces like the course-setting “Journey Into The Unknown” where playfulness undercuts solemnity, or “Space Bass Blues” with its distorted oscillations giving way to celestial boogie.

Cinematic and sparse in the “Star Flight” epic, otherworldly layers reveal snippets of melodies – interlocking into a nebulous sensation that’s more a process than entity – given a varied, if always riveting, texture. The scale of the trip might have made Moore a rival to Vangelis, yet there’s something purely American in the disco bonus of “I’ve Got My Helmet On” featuring a lysergic vocal, or “Dance Of The Droids” whose baroque gets wrapped in prog rock swirl while hinting at surf twang. The original vinyl finale of “Bottomless Pit Of Space” is a microcosm of a grand adventure, so it’s a great pity that Rocket Robert’s flight was a one-off occasion.

****2/3

December 15, 2015

Category(s): Reissues
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