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January 12, 1998  |
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Park West Chicago, IL, USA |
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Notes
The second gig in series of six solo concerts before P2 live concert debut the following month, finds RF before an appreciative crowd. Of the show, the reviewer of the Chicago Tribune felt “This was not a display of virtuosity in the conventional sense--Fripp clearly has no interest in demonstrating the speed, fluidity or dexterity of his “chops.” Instead it was an extended exercise in mood manipulation, as waves of sound veered from thick, atmospheric drones to more dissonant textures that even at their loudest caressed rather than pummeled the senses.”
In the opening section high sustained notes build up into ominous drifts, single pin-pricks of light pierce the soundclouds and towards the end, a brass-like undertow burnishes the sweeping single notes.
The second track begins to put in place the ascending themes of the Affirmation; the mood is stately, grand and sombre, whose floating chords seem filled with sadness
Improv III contains its fair share of bleeps, bloops, pan-pipes and a swatch of fiery lead guitar before moving sideways into angst that dominates the second half of the show, veering towards dense, darker forms, distorting and swirling across the stereo picture.
Along with the complete concert (including the portion of the music which began too early for some concert-goers to hear), the Q&A session heard here was also used for the spoken-word Robert Fripp Unplugged series. In preparing this concert for download Alex Mundy encountered one or two difficulties. “Unfortunately, this dat comes from the desk, rather than direct from Robert’s rack, so there is a little hiss and hum, I guess just white noise from the desk, cabling etc.
I have taken some off, but I didn’t want to take the high and low end frequencies away. Also there seems to be a gate on the desk, which just does occasionally chatter a bit on the louder sections. This also effects Roberts Q And A section a little. But besides those little problems, this is a very good performance, with some great moods!”
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| Tracks
All previews are MP3 192kbps
Personnel
Robert Fripp
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Audio Source: Soundboard Dat Tape
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Fan Reviews
Improvscapes, Tue., Feb 15, 2011
Written by Otohiko
This is a record I’ve been coming back to often over the last few months, largely because it’s so free-flowing and exploratory. There is a lot of long, sorrowful sweeps here, but they’re not intense - they come and go at leisure, and Robert does his share at convincing the audience relax and take it as a natural background to whatever they’re doing. The result is music that doesn’t hurry to say anything directly, instead winding its way through textures and harmonies freely. For poignancy and power, you may be best advised to look elsewhere in soundscapes, but if you just want to hear Robert happily at work in an improv setting, you can’t do much better than this. Oh, and the Q&A, along with Robert’s rather amusing introduction (which actually comes almost a third of the way through the performance) are a fun bonus - the guitarist is seems to be in good spirits and the audience likewise shows lots of respect. This is probably a unique recording if you are interested in soundscapes recorded with responsive audience - on other releases, this response is usually omitted. Here, meanwhile, you can definitely get a glimpse at what was definitely a very interactive and productive evening.
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