Rimbaud began his musical career with Glenn Branca-styled guitar symphonies (on the self-released Peyrere, in 1982) and with movie soundtracks (for director Derek Jarman).

It took several years before he found his true vocation. Then two austere (and sometimes pretentious) sound collages of telephone conversations appeared: Scanner 1 (Ash Int, 1992) and Scanner 2 (Ash Int, 1993). Selected portions of those albums were remixed in a techno manner on Mass Observation (Ash, 1994), a groundbreaking recording whose tracks achieve an intense melodrama through either hypnotic layering of found sounds or subliminal repetition of soundbites and beats. Exposing the nudity of the wireless society, Rimbaud contents himself with providing a passive documentary of the city's aural cacophony.

Spore (New Electronica, 1995), Sulphur (Sub Rosa, 1996), recorded live, and Mimetic Flesh (Sub Rosa, 1996) are transitional works that exploit that simple idea in more and more technological depth.

The more aggressive beats and lushier electronic layers of Mort Aux Vaches (Staalplaat, 1997) inaugurate a more "popular" phase. But Delivery (Earache, 1997) shows an insecure artist, who can't decide between the dancefloor and atmospheric instrumentals, between drama tense drama (Heidi) and chamber ambient music (Throne of Hives, Hunting Your Lost Face). The lame techno of Vs Signs Ov Chaos (Earache, 1998) and Beacon (Sulphur, 1998) is also a sign of immaturity.

A Derek Jarman tribute, The Garden Is Full Of Metal (Sub Rosa, 1998) appeared under his name Robin Rimbaud.

Rimbaud has achieved international stature as an avantgarde musician and participates in countless collaborative multimedia shows and permanent sound sculptures. Stopstarting (1998), for example, is a study of the urban soundscape.

In the meantime, the Scanner project continues with Sounds For Spaces (Sub Rosa, 1998), an anthology of rarities spanning 14 years of activity, and the Lauwarm Instrumentals (Sulphur, 1999), the main work of this phase, a bold excursion from new age meditational pieces to symphonic apotheoses. Immemory sets the standard: slowly moving ambient music for for drones, decomposed whisper and minimalist organ suddenly erupts in torrential drumming, raga-like piano figures and electronic whines. Passage De Recherche is the embryo of a symphonic movement, its theme floating in the air, disturbed by alien interferences. Subsonic frequencies popoulate the empty landscape of Sonnenlicht with a busy locomotion of minimalist patterns. Lithis Water, the longest track at 12 minutes, boasts both the most symphonic counterpoint and the most frantic beats. Its forceful crescendo is also the antithesis of where the album started. All tracks build up movement from inertia. Vertical Line sums up the praxis with the purest symphonic score: the rhythm is now merely a drum that echoes at long intervals. Rimbaud delivers an exercise in subtlely.

One of the purest expressions of his collage art is Cystic (Noton, 1999).

The Quick And The Dead (Sulfur, 2000), a collaboration with DJ Spooky, is a good example of how Rimbaud can waste his talent in pointless doodling.

Scanner also contributes a few "themes" to the David Shea collaboration album Free Chocolate Love (Sub Rosa, 2000). Theme From Lost Lonely and Vicious, Theme From Love Of Light, Theme From Moon Landing are as close as a dj can get to new age music.

Wave of Light by Wave of Light (Sulphur, 2001) is credited to ScannerFunk. Somewhere between supermarket muzak, orchestral soundtracks and ambient music, Rimbaud's new style absorbs trance/dance cliches and self-indulgent self-quotations (more telephone sampling) to compose avantgarde pieces. I Am Calm couples Steve Reich-ian piano figures with jazzy bass lines. The 10-minute orgy of lush tones Light Turned Down finds a common ground between the pulsation of techno music and Terry Riley's minimalistic ragas (although it could have been done in less than ten minutes). The industrial ballet Cosy Veneer (its score obtained by turning the pixels of an image into sounds) overlays a frenetic polyrhythm with smooth Brian Eno-esque drones. The main feature of Ice That Abandons Me is the floating melodies, reminiscent of Enya.
Half of the album is occupied with dance pieces. Only Spinique, that packs the furor of industrial-metal, and Thumb Print (distorted, breathless beats and haunting bells-like chiming) invigorate and innovate. Speechless and Red Stone Sun, with their mixture of hip-hop beats and melancholy synth wails, are hardly revolutionary. For sheer dance-floor appeal Automatic is the plat du jour.
The (ubiquitous) vocal samples are probably the most annoying element of the album.

Nemesis (Bette, 2003), the score for a dance production, sounds like a random selection from a scientific catalog of possible rhythms, with little or no emotion attached to it.

Sound Polaroids (2003), a by-product of an interactive audiovisual installation, was composed at the computer, manipulating digital photographs of art (it was originally intereactive because visitors of the installation could retrieve pictures of cities by making noises)

The Crystalline Address (Sub Rosa, 2003), a collaboration with >A HREF=../vol5/pgr.html>Kim Cascone, contains two ambient suites.

Play Along (SubRosa, 2005) is a long-distance collaboration with Dessy.

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