RImarimba “Below The Horizon” (Freedom to Spend)

The first in the Rimarimba series, 1983’s Below The Horizon, features Robert Cox in exploratory mode, figuring out exactly how to make his music. There’s a pleasure in hearing how he feels out the parameters of his aesthetic, here – there’s a boxy minimalism, slightly clunky and charming with it, that reflects the home-spun, improvisatory tenor of the compositions. It’s ambitious music, though, wanting to do the most and the best it can with its limited resources. Cox himself admits to not being “pre-wired” to making this music, but that only makes it more compelling: “Were I to be properly musical, it wouldn’t actually work as well in some ways; it’d be just another album of contemporary clattery music.”