Exposure - Robert Fripp > Reviews > Robert Fripp Exposed

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Groundbreaking
Lyrics	Thought-provoking
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Outstanding
Value for Money

Advantages:	Brilliantly creative, inventive, innovative .  .  .  etc .  album played by a stunning list of musicians
Disadvantages:	some might find it pretentious

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The chances are that you’ve heard Robert Fripp’s guitar even if you’ve never heard the name. Ever wondered whose amazing guitar that is on Bowie’s Heroes? What about Scary Monsters? He’s played with and produced Peter Gabriel, the Talking Heads, Brian Eno, David Sylvian, The Future Sound of London, Blondie Andy Summers (of the Police), The Orb; also The California Guitar Trio, Trey Gunn, Bill Rieflin (for those who know who they are) and is married to Toyah Wilcox of all people, but otherwise better known as the only remaining founder member and force behind King Crimson.

Fripp has made a vast array of solo albums, mostly his ambient soundscapes that are themselves beautiful. He’s had other bands too beyond Crimson: The League of Gentleman (back in 1980), Robert Fripp’s String Quintet (1994); but there is only one available solo album that is (nearly) conventionally “song based.”

Exposure is that album.

It is also an amazingly varied album. In parts it may appear a little pretentious but as often as not what people refer to as pretentious is nothing more than an attempt to do something original or inventive and when it fails, it’s awful and so people go “bah, pretentious rubbish,” rather than attempt to interact with the music and appreciate that there are different aims and achievements. Sometimes sonically, texturally; see Adrian Belew’s Belewprints where three tracks are attempts to use ‘found’ sounds rhythmically, sonically and then the two combined. He is investigating sound; I admit these aren’t fantastic pieces of music but they make you think, and are surrounded by some great tracks, which makes up for it.

But back to Exposure.

It begins with Fripp speaking: “Uh - can I play you - um ­- some of the new things I've been doing, which I think could be commercial?” Alright, I guess I’ve already scared a few people off with that… (“pretentious nonsense!”). Then the album has a intentional false start. We get the sound of a choir and then: “no, I won’t start like that.” Silence; the sound of a telephone ringing, footsteps, the receiver is lifted and:

We crash into the raucus You Burn Me Up You’re a Cigarette, which could well be the only track ever to have their lyrics written by Fripp, which probably explains the strangeness of some of the lyrics (and the invented words). Though some of the lyrics don’t surprise me, coming from Fripp: “…musical elation is my only consolation…” which is very Frippian indeed – I can’t help but think that sometimes that he sees himself as something of a martyr, sadly. This track is almost like an old fashioned Rock ‘n Roll song only filtered through Fripp’s dark musical sensibilities. Its two odd minutes of rock-out are like being shaken by the hands of a giant. You come out stunned yet elated.

Onto

Breathless: a fluid instrumental that is not as breathless as the title implies. It soars and I can almost imagine myself speeding over a cityscape listening to this (don’t ask me why, I don’t normally associate such images with music whatsoever). I’ve been assured that the time signatures in this track are very daring and sophisticated, but being musically inept I wouldn’t know, still I shall trust their wisdom.

Then the most brilliant of all tracks: Disenegage. Peter Hammil’s vocal’s here are amazing, if only because they’re even more hysterical than Bowie’s on either Look Back in Anger or Heroes. This is a magnificent bombshell of a song. Fripp’s guitar wails in competition with Hammil’s vocals and crash out of the speakers in what would be a musical mess if it wasn’t so tightly controlled. The lyrics are… well, try and work them out (both in terms of meaning and “what are those words he’s singing?”)… though they are somehow perfect, they match the music and the vocal stylising (“…she asked me to wait in the hallway, while I’m doing my best not to scream: disengagae, disengage…”). And here I wish to celebrate Joanna Walton’s invaluable contribution to the album. All the lyrics are hers, bar You Burn me… and Exposure. Also she seems to be a driving force behind Fripp, she motivates the album. I have no idea who she is though except that I believe she was Fripp’s girlfriend at the time. So if anybody out there knows, please tell me!! She gives the album a kind of passion and warmth that Fripp in hi intellectualism sometimes misses, and so I feel her contribution is as important as Fripp’s own and that of Eno or Hammil.

North Star is apparently a love song – while writing this I’ve been investigating – by Walton about her and Fripp and sung by Daryl Hall. There’s something quite gentle about it yet also something reminds of me of Breathless, though with the guitar slowed down a bit. This is no bad thing in fact it’s quite positive. Hall’s vocals are quite similar to Hammil’s on Disengage. Both are quit taut and tense; in this case in counterpoint to relaxed gentleness of the music.

Chicago is seemingly also a love song by Walton about Fripp’s smile. He smiles like Chicago. Don’t ask me what this is meant to mean exactly but apparently it’s meant to be amusing. Still it’s a great track, dark and Hall’s gravely vocals slide over the surface of Fripp’s dark guitar and his Frippertronics (which is his early guitar loop system, a forerunner of his more sophisticated Soundscapes of the 90s). Still a love song that is as dark as this is always going to be good and this is no exception.

NY3. This is based upon a recording of the family in the apartment next to Fripp’s in Manhatten that he did as their voices screamed through the walls. The daughter is pregnant by god-knows-who and being berated by her parents. Fripp overlays the manipulated voices with some mean guitar. The effect sounds pretentious but is really an exceptionally powerful prog-rock track. Like Disengage it’s gotta be played LOUD and I LOVE it!

Mary is the softest track on the album and I used to HATE WITH A PASSION, but now I find it rather beautiful. The vocals are by Terre Roche (again I have no idea who she is, so if anyone knows…). Apparently this was written by Walton for someone who made her heart bleed, genuinely so, for this is a fantastically moving little (in time not power and passion) track that’s works for its simplicity. Fripp let’s Roche’s voice take over and does nothing else but layer some ambient Frippertronics beneath it. Beautiful.

Exposure. For those conversant with Peter Gabriel Two, you may think you know this track, and with good reason, for it is another version of it, though pared down. Gabriel spells out “exposure” letter for letter as Roche shrieks the word over Fripp’s soundscapes and the looped voice of Fripp’s mentor JG Bennet. Again it sounds pretentious but the results work, because of the different vocal sty lings and the fact Fripp isn’t trying to be bombastic with his guitar. It’s a sonic investigation and bloody brilliant with it. Better than the version on the Gabriel album, frankly.

But I am trying your patience with this long winded deconstruction most likely, so I shall pare it all down too. Following Exposure there are a number of simpler tracks, such as his Water Music I, II and Urban Lanscape which are early solo frippertronics. Perhaps these aren’t his best but then he’s investigating new sonic territory (though in some ways similar to what Eno was doing) and technologies that would serve him well for the future (especially the re-instatement of King Crimson).

I May Not Have Had Enough Of Me But I've Had Enough Of You is shouting match between Hammil and Roche set to music. I’m not sure who wins but this is a suitably raucous investigation of the collapse of relationships and the ensuing recriminations. A friend of mine when he heard it though hated it; I can see his point but I still think he’s wrong!

The final great track on the album is a simple version of Gabriel’s Here Comes the Flood from Peter Gabriel One. Once again this is a far better version than Gabriel’s original. It’s minus the orchestration and the synthesised rain drops. There is nothing more then Gabriel on Piano and vocals and Fripp subtly soundscaping beneath him. It’s a beautiful version, and my friend who introduced me to Exposure loved this song though he hated Peter Gabriel’s original, and just Peter Gabriel’s music for that matter.

Finally the album comes to an end. The man on the phone, assumedly Fripp states suddenly: “So the whole story is completely untrue - a big hoax - ha ha ha.” The sound his laughter is looped and slowly dies to silence.

This is an amazing album also for the list of musician’s involved. Beside Fripp there’s Eno, Gabriel. Hammil, Hall, Roche (whoever she is she has a great voice!), Tony Levin (possibly the world’s greatest bass player – certainly according to Gabriel), Jerry Morotta, Barry Andrews (who would go to play with Fripp in The League of Gentleman) and Phil Collins on drums back when he wasn’t a saccharine songwriter but played an instrument and kept his mouth shut! Such talent on one album is rare and something to be savoured.

If you’re interested in the artwork, etc, well, it’s minimal, a front cover and a few sketchy linernotes within that give little info. I love the front cover. A giant close out of Fripp face as if a photo taken from his image on a TV screen over laid on the right by the man himself dressed in a suit looking remarkably at ease (for Fripp is notoriously retiring and contemptuous of the press and interviews, etc.). Don’t ever take a photo of him as he’ll walk off stage!

As an album Exposure is a million miles away from his work with King Crimson. Still it is very recognisably Fripp. His creative motifs and occasional failed experiments are in evidence though this is decidedly in his iconoclastic mode rather than the more fun-filled days in The League of Gentleman (1980), which was meant to be a dance band. Despite the differences in mood of style of the tracks the album flows together seamlessly. I think because of the talent on board, with Fripp guiding them through his own aesthetic. It is interesting to know that Fripp hadn’t made an album since breaking up Crimson 5 years earlier and had practically retired, though Eno and Bowie has coaxed him over to Berlin and “spray burning guitar” all thorough Heroes.

I wish more albums were like Exposure and took chances. Sometimes they work and sometimes they fail. This one works for all its faults because of its sincerity, it’s not trying to be obscure ever; it’s just trying to push boundaries and endeavours to investigate different types of musicality. Fripp refuses to be pegged down into one mood or style. Just witness the evolution of King Crimson, which has never descended into blandly playing its greatest hits ad infinitum but evolving with the musical vernacular.

I don’t necessarily suggest this is an album for everyone but it’s as relevant today as it was when released, and so I write this for those who may find it and enjoy it as I did and do.

Available from Amazon for £7.99 – which is hideously cheap as it cost closer to £17 when I was still a poor students 4 years ago. This is the best place to buy it as it can be costly elsewhere; unless you work in central London as you can stroll down to Selectadisk on Berwick Street and pick it up for about the same price, but I can’t honestly remember the exact price, but it’s about the same and you don’t get hit for the P&P

PS – I’ve just found out the voice at the beginning and the end is actually Brian Eno in a falafel restaurant… so there you go, enriched at last!