rst
Axes

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"From the vantage of 2007 it is easy to forget the conceptual and aesthetic leap represented by the work of rst. I was amazed when I heard his first lathe-cut LP Event Horizon in early 1995, because there was really nothing like it before.
    While clearly responding to the same imperatives as the nearly-contemporary Surface of the Earth, his sound effectively came out of nowhere. Indeed, at that point, one of the few things I’d heard operating in the same area was Earth itself. While now the plague of black metallers and second-rate ‘drone-istas’ have made this seem like a starting-point obvious to the point of being passé, 12 years ago that was far from true.
    So it’s easy now to listen to the new rst album, his third in the last decade after releases on Ecstatic Peace! and Corpus Hermeticum, and think – I’ve heard that before. But in fact, all you’ve heard is everyone who copped this shit from the originators. This immaculate blend of scrubbed and polished metallic tones, layered and sculpted like automotive bodywork of the first order, is in fact the real deal. rst had this first, and remains best at doing it, because he’s kept his head down, kept off bad drugs, and continued to refine his work in relative obscurity – not caring    whether or not you know about it.
    It’s hard not to lose yourself in this because for me it sounds like the operation of the cosmos, amplified to audibility. This is electric guitar sound with all the extraneous ‘music’ stripped out. Electricity in action: natural like electro-magnetism, and devotional like the wind from the sun." --Bruce Russell, Lyttelton NZ, June 2007