Audiopile Review: Robert Rental, like his erstwhile collaborator Thomas Leer, is remembered as a pioneer of bedroom synth pop. But Rental and Leer emerged from the post-Throbbing Gristle industrial scene. And as anyone who’s heard side B of their classic duo album ‘The Bridge’ will tell you, they could get pretty darn abstract. ‘Mental Detentions’, originally released on cassette in 1979 and newly reissued by Dark Entries, sees Rental at his most experimental. To be fair, these tracks very occasionally sound like attempts at pop songs that end up getting lost in a lo-fidelity fug. But Rental always felt that he couldn’t achieve the sound he was after in a ‘proper’ studio. With this guy, the fug’s the thang. ‘Mental Detentions’ could be seen as the true birth of lo-fi as a conscious aesthetic. But that would imply it sounds like anything else that’s subsequently been described as lo-fi. Truth is, nothing sounds like Rental’s claustrophobic, mildewed punk psychedelia. Rental passed in 2000 and somehow feels locked in his time. ‘Mental Detentions’ is a peak into a visionary mind traversing the grim, rainy streets of Glasgow and London in the late 70s. But as the long nights draw in, its enduring and universal appeal will easily be revealed to you.

Robert Rental takes up residence with Dark Entries again for an expanded double vinyl reissue of Mental Detentions. Robert Rental was a Scottish pioneer of DIY electronic music. Along with his illustrious collaborators like Thomas Leer and Daniel Miller, Rental helped shape the countercultural sound of the UK with his timely melding of Krautrock, dub, and punk. Originally from Port Glasgow, he moved to the south of England with Thomas Leer in the late 1970s, and became involved with the local music scene. Robert Rental however released very little of his solo music – the only solo recording from The 1970s is the 7″ single “Paralysis” first released on the homemade Regular Records in 1978, and re-released on Dark Entries in 2020. Mental Detentions was released as a cassette in 1979, the same year as his masterpiece The Bridge, a collaboration with Thomas Leer. Using an assortment of budget electronics—a Roland drum machine, a kid’s Stylophone keyboard, and an Electroharmonix DrQ—Robert takes us on a gauzy, trip, at once expansive and intimate, minimalist and maximalist. “Stuck” is mangled motorik, like Neu! run through a meat grinder, while “Vox” meanders like an 18 minute ambient fever dream. Robert spoke to friends of his frustration at being unable to replicate his sound in a commercial studio – it was these demos’ sound that he wanted to create. Sometimes having only access to the most rudimentary of equipment can sharpen one’s craft—necessity is the mother of invention, indeed. This ethic shines in his work, providing a throughline to the now, as the world feels bigger and smaller than ever. “Influenced everyone from John Foxx and Art of Noise to ABC. Seriously next level day zero DIY electro pop made in a bedsit with hacked together synths and reel-to-reel recorders.” – Boomkat