ROBERT FRIPP "Exposure" (EG Records) 1979
On the album cover, a photo of the musician with a large and perplexed female eye behind him. The image is grainy as if it came from a television broadcast, a closed-circuit video, or a snapshot. There’s a blurring of what we see and what watches us. The reference to the title is incredibly apt.
It is not a useless endeavor to contextualize temporally this work that appeared in 1979, amidst the cheerful beat of disco-music, the punk, and the burgeoning New Wave, marking a period of considerable transformation. Robert Fripp re-emerged into the music world that year after a period of absence due to an existential anxiety in which he was interested in various forms of esotericism, attending Yoga communities and following the teachings of mystics like Gurdjieff and Ouspenski. He began playing again, participating in albums by diverse artists: just to name a few, David Bowie, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Brian Ferry, Roches, Blondie, etc.
The unusual aspect of this his first solo work is the fact that today it's possible to find in it an exact compendium of everything he had done but also everything he would realize. When I bought the album, I knew Fripp as a guitarist of extraordinary technique, never inclined to virtuosities for their own sake, and as a complex personality, sometimes pedantic, other times ironic, who had made musical research a strong prerogative of his. I found it an interesting but disorganized work, lacking organicity: a completely erroneous judgment, because, like a puzzle reassembling, it is a work that after thirty years reveals a stunning clarity of intent. Wanting to dive into a philosophical terminology, we could say that "Exposure" is a kind of phenomenological synthesis of Robert Fripp.
In the 17 tracks that constitute it, he allows the past (the King Crimson of which he was the guitarist and mastermind) to coexist and outlines his new musical interests. It is an album with distinguished participations: Peter Gabriel (who had recently left Genesis), Peter Hammill (who had disbanded Van Der Graaf), Daryl Hall, Phil Collins, Tony Levin, and Brian Eno. The tracks are half "canonical" and half anomalous, instrumental interludes ("Preface", "Water Music", "Haaden Two", etc.) in which you hear ambient sounds, frequencies, and hypnotic guitar interventions. In each of them, the "Frippertronics" is used, a name humorously boastful for a setup consisting of an electric guitar, two reel tape recorders with tracks dedicated to recording and others to playback through which the same magnetic tape is continuously looped: the sound, passing between the two devices, creates from each note of the performer an enveloping periodic repetition, an almost infinite echo that fades very slowly. A technique already present in tape manipulation of contemporary music but perfected here.
As in much avant-garde music, the listener should try to enter the flow of these "Urban Landscapes" without seeking the customary "before" and "after," but immerse in the "during." King Crimson fans will find traces of them in the melodic "NorthStar" and "Mary", and in the vibrant and syncopated "Breathless" performed with impressive and enthralling guitar technique. A homage to rock’n’roll is instead found in "You Burn Me Up Like a Cigarette" sung by Daryl Hall (one half of the duo Hall & Oates).
A significant portion of the lyrics (very original), are by Joanna Walton, a New York artist and writer who was among the 258 people who lost their lives in the Lockerbie, Scotland terrorist bombing of a Pan-Am plane in 1988. An example is the track "I May Not Have Had Enough of Me but I've Had Enough of You" with lyrics played on the lexical mixture of a phrase and its variations. In this song as well as in "Chicago", Peter Hammill's voice is present, so intense and powerful that it truly gives chills.
From a certain standpoint, the album shows episodes, real and imaginary, from Fripp’s life, for example in "NY3" where his guitar tensely follows the recorded voices of a quarrel between a girl and her parents in the New York apartment building where he lived. "Here Comes the Flood" written and performed by Peter Gabriel, is presented here in a different arrangement (voice, piano, frippertronics) compared to that on the ex-Genesis member's second solo album. The version here is, however, heavily dramatic. It appears clear Fripp's intention to push each singer to force their voice.
Indeed, the excellent Terre Roche shouts in "Exposure" articulating the single word of the text and its voice grows in intensity until it becomes piercing. A significant anticipation of today's visibility frenzy. This piece will also be interpreted by Peter Gabriel in his album.
In the introduction, you can hear the voice of J.G. Bennett (1897-1974), a curious figure of an English soldier and mystic, who in 1971 inaugurated the International Academy for Continuous Education in Sherborne, near Gloucester, declaring: "It is impossible to achieve an aim without suffering". Fripp met Bennett and attended his school: indeed, in the album, there is also a track entitled "First Inaugural Address To The I.A.C.E. Sherbourne House"
Shortly after "Exposure," Robert Fripp would rapidly release the more programmatic "God Save the Queen," "The League of Gentlemen," "Let the Power Fall," and re-enter the scene with King Crimson, reaching today’s fascinating soundscapes ("Pie Jesu," "November Suite," "A Blessing of Tears"), to continue a journey that seems endless.
P.S.
For those intrigued by subliminal messages, the track "Haaden Two" listened to in reverse, presents a strange phrase: "One thing is for sure: the sheep is not a creature of the air" taken from a sketch by the English comedy group Monty Phython, and not (as some seekers of satanic phrases would have it) a sacrilegious nod to Jesus Christ in the guise of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. It suggests that some Christians are more unreasonable than Satanists and rock...
P.P.S.
In 2006 a reissue of "Exposure" was published, which includes 5 additional tracks: they are interesting alternative versions of tracks already present on the album.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Preface (01:14)
'''Brian Eno:''' Uh... Can I play you... um... some of the new things I've been doing, which I think could be commercial?
'''Peter Gabriel:''' Actually, I won't start like that, sorry. And again: three, four...
02 You Burn Me Up I'm a Cigarette (02:22)
You burn me up I'm a cigarette
You hold my hand I begin to sweat
You make me nervous
Ooh I'm nervous
It must be real bad karma
For this to be my dharma
With you
You burn me up I'm a cigarette
Life with you is a loser's bet
You make me crazy
Ooh I'm going crazy
Your therapeutic antics
Well they really make me frantic
With you
Strategic interaction irreducible fraction
Terminal inaction and a bitter hostile faction
I'm getting anxious
I'm franxious
Transactional diseases are the only thing that pleases
We
You burn me up I'm a cigarette
Demanding my attention which you're not gonna get
What did the sage mean?
What had the sage seen?
Musical elation is my only consolation
Oh yeah
You burn me up I'm about to ignite
When you tell me you love me I give up this fight
I'm feeling put down my feelings shut down
I want rejuvenation from male emancipation
[note: some releases omit printing this verse]
Strategic interaction terminal inaction
A bitter hostile faction irreducible fraction
Transactional diseases are the only thing that pleases
We
04 Disengage (02:52)
Mrs Marion is strict with her servant
Behind locked doors over coffee they speak
They speak to my sister and my parents
And I'm trying hard not to shriek
Disengage
Disengage
Disengage
Disengage, disengage
She decodes my secrets and my fragments
I'd create any betrayal for their sake
She asks me to wait in the hallway
Where I'm doing my best not to, not to, not to shake
Disengage, disengage
Disengage
Disengage
Disengage
Muttering words to her
Muttering words to her
Muttering words to her for convenience
I start to head for the door
Mrs Marion screams over my shoulder
Walking out's just another metaphor
Disengage
07 NY3 (02:16)
Father: Your house
Daughter: My house
Father: Your house
Daughter: My house
Father: Your house
Daughter: My house
Father: Your house
Daughter: My house
Well get out, there's the door
Well get out, there's the door
Well get out, there's the door
Well get out, there's the door
Father: It is not your house
It is not your house
It is not your house
It is not your house
It is not your house
Mother: And you're a cocaine sniffer
And you're a cocaine sniffer
And you're a cocaine sniffer
And you're a cocaine sniffer
Don't call me a slut
Father: No
Mother: You're carrying a baby
You don't know whether it's a nigger, a spic or a white baby
Don't call me a slut
Father: No
Mother: You're carrying a baby
You don't know whether it's a nigger, a spic or a white baby
You've got to go for an abortion, baby
I never had to
Father: No way, never
Mother: You've got to go for an abortion, baby
I never had to
Father: No way, never
Mother: You're carrying a baby
You don't know whether it's a nigger, a spic or a white baby
You've got to go for an abortion, baby
I never had to
Father: No way, never
Your house
Daughter: My house
Father: Your house
Daughter: My house
Father: Your house
Your house
Daughter: My house
Father: Your house
Daughter: My house
Father: Your house
Daughter: My house
Well get out, there's the door
09 Exposure (04:25)
J.G. Bennett: It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering. It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering.
X-P-O-S-U-R-E
X-P-O-S-U-R-E
Exposure
X-P-O-S-U-R-E
Exposure
X-P-O-S-U-R-E
Exposure
X-P-O-S-U-R-E
J.G. Bennett: It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering. It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering.
X-P-O-S-U-R-E
Exposure
X-P-O-S-U-R-E
etc.
15 Here Comes the Flood (03:52)
When the night shows the signals grow on radios
All the strange things they come and go as early warnings
Stranded starfish have no place to hide
Still waiting for the swollen easter tide
There's no point in direction
We cannot even choose a side
Crowd
Lord here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up dreamers you're running dry
I took the old track
The hollow shoulder, across the waters
On the tall cliffs
They were getting older; sons and daughters
The jaded underworld was riding high
Waves of steel hurled metal at the sky
And as the nails sunk in the cloud
The rain was warm and soaked the crowd
When the flood calls
You have no home, you have no walls
In the thunder crash
You're a thousand minds, within a flash
Don't be afraid to cry at what you see
The actors gone, there's only you and me
And if we break before the dawn
They'll use up what we used to be
17 Postscript (00:38)
Brian Eno: So the whole story is completely untrue. A big hoax. Ha, ha, ha!
A big hoax. Ha, ha, ha!
A big hoax. Ha, ha, ha!
A big hoax. Ha, ha, ha!
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Other reviews
By 47
The title track is pure madness, a voice spelling out the letters composing the word 'exposure' robotically and throughout the track.
This work follows the two albums in collaboration with Brian Eno, after the second disbandment of King Crimson.