Robert Fripp - Let The Power Fall 1981

Let the Power Fall is an album of Frippertronics, which to the uninitiated can sound like an electrical hum. In reality, it's a technique developed with Brian Eno, which allows the guitarist to play against a tape loop of sustained notes. With Frippertronics as his mantra, Robert Fripp creates impressive instrumental structures by building layers of sound atop one another. This sort of ambient music is conducive to a specific frame of mind, but like Eno's Discreet Music it rewards the careful listener. Let the Power Fall can be seen as a refinement of the music explored in earlier Fripp & Eno collaborations, though with Eno out of the equation the songs take a decidedly more mathematical bent. The record begins with "1984," picking up where Under Heavy Manners/God Save the Queen left off. The song titles are better seen as successive numbers in a catalog than specific dates, as they're all of a piece. You could make a case that "1984," "1987," and "1988" are the most impressive constructs, but it's foolish to put much meaning behind that. While Fripp employs the same soothing waves of sound that Eno used on Evening Star and Discreet Music, there's only so much that can be made from Frippertronics (think Yosemite Sam and his coconuts), and the end result feels a little cold and remote when compared with Eno's warm ambient textures. Let the Power Fall may be the ideal album of Frippertronics, yet it's a technique that, while fascinating at times, has its own limitations. AMG.

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Robert Fripp - Exposure 1979

Conceived as the third part of an MOR trilogy that included Peter Gabriel's second album and Daryl Hall's Sacred Songs, Exposure is concerned with a marketplace that Fripp saw as hostile to experimentation and hungry for product. Strangely, then, Exposure is one of his most varied and successful rock albums, offering a broad selection of styles. "Water Music I and II" is pure Frippertronics; "Disengage" and "I May Not Have Had Enough of Me But I've Had Enough of You" are angular, jagged rock like he would make with the reformed King Crimson; "North Star" is a soulful ballad led by Daryl Hall on vocals, and a less bombastic version of "Here Comes the Flood" with Peter Gabriel singing makes a melancholic ending.Peter Hammill, Terre Roche, and Narada Michael Walden also add vocals to a pleasant experiment in pop, Fripp style. AMG.
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