Andy Summers & Robert Fripp
I Advance Masked

It must have been at least nice to attend a guitar lesson in those early '60s where boys like Robert Fripp, Greg Lake, and Andy Summers ended up with the same teacher. Maybe they supported each other, sharing their problems: you know, things like the tone-deaf left-hander who wants to play right-handed, the one who feels inferior because the barre chords break his fingers, the one who plays guitar because maybe girls will like it more...

Then their paths diverge, but the world is small and around and around, they meet again. We know everything about Fripp, less about pre-Police Summers, so perhaps it's worth remembering, at least, the excellent collaborations before reaching the Police, like Soft Machine, Kevin Ayers, John Lord and Mike Oldfield.

By the time everything was done, when the Police were just an economic tug-of-war and a bit before the epitaph "Synchronicity" was published, Summers and Fripp met with a few experimental ideas in the works.

Putting two guitarists together is never easy, and indeed, it always brings to mind that thing about two roosters in the henhouse. But the two are very different, not so much in training as in growth, and when it's like that, it's easy that they can find the right spaces and the right agreements. There is so much technique and genius, from both sides, for Fripp we could give a thousand examples, for Summers songs like "Walking On A Moon" come to mind where his intelligent and unusual guitaring stands out to the more savvy ear, but it has gone almost unnoticed to many who have always taken the most direct and catchy side of the Police.

What came from the meeting? Two interesting works, this is the first and in my opinion the best, though I also appreciated the subsequent "Bewitched".

The work is spread over thirteen short tracks, where the guitars of the two protagonists chase each other, clash, complete each other, and rise in a mutual game. Not just guitars because the two also switch places at the Fender bass, percussion, synths, creating incredible sequences saturated with overdubs and loops, for an extremely rich result.

The predominant sounds are the themes of the King Crimson era "Discipline", but Summers knows how to fine-tune solo parts of great relevance, like the raw and bluesy solo of the title track.  

Overall it's fun to imagine the work as a crucible of scientific experiments, where chemistry, mathematics, and physics seek proof of their existence. In Fripp's frenzied rhythmic ruminations there's proof that everything adds up, even if he often takes our understanding for granted. The concept of playing two guitars simultaneously, with different timings, knowing that cyclically the melodies will recur, is a typically Crimsonian display, and in this, Summers does not hold back and willingly offers his support to the master, highlighting an exemplary rhythmic ability. Besides, Fripp gives space and it won't be the ex-Police who will need to be asked again to insert himself in the best ways. "Girl on a Swing" is exemplary of this chasing technique, thus, while Summers rotates the arpeggio waiting for the solo raids, Fripp manages to place his avalanche of quarter notes that come and go from the main theme. A similar discourse for the choleric "Stultified" from the synthesized, industrial, powerfully electric, and furiously complex spaces.

There are no solutions of any kind: Fripp is the Einstein of music and with every note of his guitar echoes a voice, which seems to shout "E=mc²".