In the land of ubiquitous cell phones, it's hard not to eavesdrop on the chatterboxes around you. Scanner, aka Robin Rimbaud, a British sound artist, has taken technology-abetted voyeurism to another level. Dubbed a "telephone terrorist," he rose to notoriety in the late '90s by filtering "found" cell-phone snippets into his darkly ominous electronic soundscapes. It was William S. Burroughs meets William Gibson. (Privacy advocates should be reassured that, by altering the voices through speed and pitch, Scanner rendered the callers anonymous.)
Overall, Scanner's music can be filed under ambient, techno and house, but it hovers closer to the more abstract and minimalist realms, where mind-expanding, free-form atmospherics are favored over rhythm-driven, fist-in-air grooves. Although it's been dubbed "intelligent trance," don't let that get in the way of enjoying it.
Scanner is a slippery character whose activities find homes in both trendy clubs and grant-supported multimedia shows. His CV includes collaborations beyond the usual suspects (DJ Spooky, for example), with names such as filmmaker Derek Jarman, singer Bryan Ferry and multimedia artist Laurie Anderson.