RSSRobert Fripp [extended]
- No Pussyfooting [Antilles, 1975] B+
- Evening Star [Antilles, 1976] B+
- Exposure [Polydor, 1979] B+
- The League of Gentlemen [Polydor, 1981] B
- Let the Power Fall (An Album of Frippertronics) [Editions EG, 1981] B-
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Consumer Guide Reviews:
Fripp & Eno: No Pussyfooting [Antilles, 1975]
Although art-rockers praise Fripp's undulating phased guitar and Eno's mood-enhancing synthesizer drones, they also complain that it all gets a little, well, monotonous after a while. That's the problem with art-rockers--they don't know much about art. I think these two twenty-minute duets, recorded more than two years ago, are the most enjoyable pop electronics since Terry Riley's A Rainbow in Curved Air, achieving their goal with admirable formal concision. What do the bored ones want? Can't have meter shifts 'cause there's no beat, can't have bad poetry because there's no vocalist, can't have fancy chord changes 'cause there's no key center. What's left is tranquility amid the machines, more visionary and more romantic than James Taylor could dream of being. Highlight: the unrestrained snake guitar on the unfortunately titled "Swastika Girls." B+
Fripp & Eno: Evening Star [Antilles, 1976]
This time F&E take dead aim at the hit single they so manifestly deserve by breaking their magic music into four distinct pieces on side one, but as a result I find the total effect more static--the endings are disconcertingly arbitrary, while No Pussyfooting's full sides just keep on moving. Special award for the simulated scratch that decorates "An Index of Metals"--one of the most reassuringly fallible moments ever recorded. B+
Exposure [Polydor, 1979]
Fripp has always been a bit of a jerk, but over the years he's figured out what to do with the talent that goes along with his affliction. This concept album earns its conceit, orchestrating bits and pieces of art-rock wisdom--from punk to Frippertronics, from King Crimson to singer-songwriter--into a fluent whole. Maybe soon he'll get smart enough to forget about J.G. Bennett. "It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering" isn't exactly big news, and old Crimson fans will swallow side two without the caveat. B+
The League of Gentlemen [Polydor, 1981]
Much as I admire Karen Durbin, Chip Stern, Terre Roche, Richard Goldstein, and Ellen Willis, to list only those commentators whose spoken overlays I recognize from personal conversation, I'm just as glad none of them was theorizing in my ear during last year's League of Gentlemen gigs at Irving Plaza, where Fripp's "dance band" sounded somewhat less dinky. And that goes double for J.G. Bennett. B
Let the Power Fall (An Album of Frippertronics) [Editions EG, 1981]
I admit to having sat mesmerized as Fripp spun out his austerely lyrical guitar loops, but having examined a set at my leisure I can only assume that the fine distinction between the trance and the nod took me in again. Always have trouble with that mystical stuff. B-