Fresh from his remarkable four-day residency at Salisbury Cathedral, Robert is sharing the stage with Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and Kenny Wayne Shepherd as part of G4. It’s the fourth date on the tour, and RF’s strategy for bringing the somewhat introspective soundscapes to a wider public includes starting playing nearly 40 minutes before the advertised time. This has the advantage of bedding down any equipment issues but more importantly, enables the guitarist to tune the air, slowly easing the performance space into the mood and direction of the piece. Dreamscape and Dreamspace are apt title though sometimes the dreams here are occasionally austere and somewhat forbidding in character.
Such music wouldn’t be for everyone attending the G3 roadshow as Joe Satriani acknowledged at the time. “The audiences were not ready for a situation where they were being played to whilst entering the venues, and they took some time adjusting to the theatrical element of Robert sitting up there on stage in the daylight, playing through his bank of pedals and effects. But, the effect was awesome as Robert let his aural soundscapes build with the mood of the environment.”
Although Robert’s diary notes that on several occasions people were trying to talk to him whilst he was playing, one fan at least (Glen Cianciulli) attending the gig was able to connect with the music: “Many did not even realize that Fripp was playing because it sounded nothing like a traditional guitar. I thought it created a cool aura with the haunted house tones, rhythmic delays and multitude of harmonies and sound samples.”
More than anything this soundscape possesses an impressive stillness as it explores harmonic themes at a truly glacial pace. It’s not until the very last section, when the majority of the G3 punters would’ve been assembled, that Fripp shifts focus. With reverberating droplets of piano notes, swelling chords and ascendant strings, Robert gracefully steers his bleeping and droning to a transcendent conclusion.
Fresh from his remarkable four-day residency at Salisbury Cathedral, Robert is sharing the stage with Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and Kenny Wayne Shepherd as part of G4. It’s the fourth date on the tour, and RF’s strategy for bringing the somewhat introspective soundscapes to a wider public includes starting playing nearly 40 minutes before the adverti...
I wandered into Salisbury cathedral in mid June 1997 to find somewhere quiet to work on the outline for my degree thesis. Instead I found a guy setting up an electric guitar and what looked like left over equipment from the filming of ’Star Trek’. I was set to go, but after listening to the first couple of minutes I decided to stay. I couldn’t tell you what the music sounded like (it didn’t really sound like anything i’d heard before) but whilst listening, the ideas sta...
I wandered into Salisbury cathedral in mid June 1997 to find somewhere quiet to work on the outline for my degree thesis. Instead I found a guy setting up an electric guitar and what looked like left over equipment from the filming of ’Star Trek’. I was set to go, but after listening to the first couple of minutes I decided to stay. I couldn’t tell you what the music sounded like (it didn’t really sound like anything i’d heard before) but whilst listening, the ideas started to flow, and I found myself with plenty of ideas to work with. It occurred to me during a couple of hours of frantic scribbling on notepads that perhaps the process of creation can be catching. Whatever it was, the music resonated with the surroundings and the surroundings seemed to gel with the music. Somewhere between the two I began a journey of exploration into ’Frippertronics’ which continues still. In a way I can’t really explain, but which is nevertheless very real, I am still there in that cathedral listening to that music. Sometimes when i’m looking for inspiration these days I stick the music on the turntable and it happens again..... sometimes it doesn’t. I know that the best way to find it is not to go looking for it. By the way, the thesis got me the highest recorded mark ever made for that course. Sometimes it pays to go with the flow.
Written by Piotr Grzelec
This is definitely my favourite period of Soundscapes. And although some prefer the latest Churchscapes as more accessible and true, there is something positive about them as they lack those moving and dark timbres and emotions of That Which Passes and November Suite albums. Here we actually meet with the same arsenal of sounds and effects which associate themselves with rather cold white and bluish colours. The spacious Dreamspace I posses this familiar ambiguous feeling of peace and emptiness....
This is definitely my favourite period of Soundscapes. And although some prefer the latest Churchscapes as more accessible and true, there is something positive about them as they lack those moving and dark timbres and emotions of That Which Passes and November Suite albums. Here we actually meet with the same arsenal of sounds and effects which associate themselves with rather cold white and bluish colours. The spacious Dreamspace I posses this familiar ambiguous feeling of peace and emptiness. It ’s either dark and beautiful. Almost all of the music here is completely atonal but it leads to really incredible ending of Dreamspace III. Maybe not everything seems to be in the right place, like those delicate flute tones appearing few minutes after the beginning but then they just disappear in the powerful wall of sound.
Written by Rich Mlinar
Venue
The name of the venue where the soundscape was recorded is the PNC Bank Arts Center, in Holmdel, NJ. I was fortunate to attend the show, and submitted a review to ET.
