R136a

R136a was RST’s debut album, a CD on Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace! label that pulls together a number of tracks from previous, limited-run releases, and adds a selection of new material from this most singular guitarist, Andrew Moon. R136a plays out as an index of potential for the simple interface of one person, a guitar, and an amplifier – as a solo guitar album, it’s surprisingly rich with different textures and approaches, though there’s a murkiness and cloaking to the recordings that has them sharing a hermetic mood. There are some blissful clouds of tone float here, like the lovely “Tin Sun”, which captures daybreak in misty climes, but some of the most compelling moments are when you can hear Moon’s very physical grappling with his instrument, none more so than on the fifteen-minute rush of adrenalin and feedback frenzy that is ”Event Horizon”.