Robert Rental has been played on NTS over 90 times, featured on 91 episodes and was first played on 7 March 2014.

Robert Rental (1952 - 2000) was an electronics experimenter who came to prominence in the late 1970s before quitting music in the early 1980s.

Born as Robert Donnachie in Port Glasgow, Scotland, he grew up together with Thomas Leer, with whom he formed a short-lived punk band in 1976. The two quickly decided that electronic music was the way to go and they both released DIY solo EPs in 1978, Rental's being "Paralysis" produced by Leer.

In 1977 and 1978 Rental had produced soundtracks for Nick Emery’s experimental films Burning Land and Facelift, and first met Daniel Miller at a Throbbing Gristle show at the London Film-Makers’ Co-op. Finding that they had many ideas in common, they went on tour together as Robert Rental & The Normal in early 1979, The Normal being Miller's alter-ego. They did not release any studio work, only the live album "Live At West Runton Pavilion, 6-3-79".

In 1979 Rental released the cassette "Mental Detentions" (posthumously re-released in 2022) and collaborated with Thomas Leer on the 1979 album "The Bridge", which was released on Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Records label.

Rental released only one more single, "Double Heart" (Mute, 1980), on which Robert Görl of Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft played drums, before becoming disillusioned with the music industry and retreating into family life. He died in October 2000 of lung cancer. 2017 saw the posthumous release of a mini album he recorded in the summer of 1979 with Glenn Wallis (who would go on to form Konstruktivists), followed in 2018 by a compilation of demos from 1980.