CD-R, Some Place Else, 2007
www.someplaceelse.net
Rajapïnta’s “Bootleg Epiphanies” blistered my eardrums, shattered my skull and painted the inside of my cranial cavity with my imploded brains. And then it put everything back together again, only not quite the way it had been before.
This is not easy-listening music; in fact, very little about this release is easy to come to terms with – it is erratic, unsettling and more than a little frightening in its confrontational intensity. But it is nevertheless a monumental piece of modulated feedback set into sonic sculpture that makes no excuses for its avant-garde obscurity and absolute lack of mainstream appeal.
The very concept the name “Rajapïnta” represents is as fluid and thought-provoking as the music: depending on the translation, Rajapïnta can either mean a border between worlds or an interface, and this record most definitely emphasizes the differing opinions between what is music and what is noise.
So it isn’t accessible. Nor is it particularly listenable, at times. Its creators, Niko Skorpio (who is responsible for some of the most deeply depressing sounds ever to emerge from Northern Europe) and Ibrahim Terzic (a highly esteemed purveyor of post-industrial noisescapes), have developed a case of clinical aural lunacy. From the high-pitched screeches of “Pressureplay” to the semi-rhythmic noise of “Spider March,” down to the false sense of structure that “Ion Flux” or “Stretched Qi” supplies, this is music that belongs in a straitjacket.
Admittedly, once my heart rate returned to normal and I could stop looking behind me every five seconds, I realized what minimal elegance this record possesses, to be able to so deeply affect its listener with such a limited array of sounds. Its creators may be certifiably insane, but they know how to wrench every last nuance out of each tortured, snarling sample before chaining it into place with discordant, unexpected sequencing.
[7.5/10]
— David vander Merwe