On the 5th October 1979, a dapper-looking Robert Fripp is in the Burbank TV Studios to record his appearance on NBC’s hit music show, The Midnight Special. Looking directly into the camera he says, “I’m Robert Fripp and this is Frippertronics. I think this is a very brave thing the producers of this show are doing since they have no real idea of what it is I’m about to do. But dedicating this performance to the proposition of hazard, neither do I. But if we did, maybe it wouldn’t be quite as interesting.” Switching his twin-Revox tape recorders onto play mode, he brings up the mellifluous swirl of accrued notes and begins a rhapsodic guitar solo whose elegance and beauty reach out far beyond the confines of the studio to spread through the ether.
Frippertronics was the tape-looped based system, first introduced to Robert Fripp by Brian Eno in the recording of their album No Pussyfooting in 1972, and which he used extensively in solo live and recorded performances until the mid 1980s.
As described by Fripp himself:
“Frippertronics is defined as that musical experience resulting at the interstice of Robert Fripp and a small, mobile and appropriate level of technology, viz his guitar, Frippelboard and two Revoxes. Simply expressed, one records on the left channel of the left machine (LL) and plays back from the left channel of the right machine (LR), which holds the right spool, to the right channel of the left machine (RL). Since a characteristic of the Revox is that the right channel in monitor mode will record a signal on to the left channel in record mode, an original signal in the manner described will be recorded repeatedly. The number of repeats is governed by the quality of original signal, the quality and condition of the machines, the quality of the tape, and bias of the machines for the brand of tape used (the importance of this cannot be exaggerated), and the balance between the playback level of LR and the monitor (signal send) level of RL to LL. No two machines run synchronously and variations in speed can cause rapid delay or high distortion; therefore at least one varispeed is needed. To have a facility for repeats lasting up to five or ten minutes requires that all these variables are attended to: a piece lasting for 10 minutes will have perhaps 50 or 100 generations of a signal. The length of delay between repeats is governed by the distance between the two machines. If one continues input in addition to the repeat of prior signal one can build a very dense layer of sound: at this point restraint is needed.
Conceptually the system is very straightforward but the variables described provide all manner of opportunities for breakdown. Frequently the innate difficulties and problems of the system develop a character of their own; eg 50 generations of a note shaken by a wobble of the table holding the equipment can become the distinguishing mood of a piece. This is the notion of working with hazard…”
And of the small intimate Frippertronics shows in places such as record stores :
“For me, there was an authenticity and reality in meeting audience and innocent punters face to face. Mark Fenwick (EG’s management) was concerned that “the audience would see that the emperor has no clothes,” failing to grasp that this was the point. “Right, so they see the emperor has no clothes. The emperor is saying, ‘but I have no clothes’. So what is left? Music, in that moment and something becomes possible. For me, to actually be able to look people in the eyes and play a note and have a question, and the people who would come along and sit on the floor, most of them actually had authentic questions about their musical experience. And it’s so easy to overlook the power that music has even today, controlled as it is by the industry. It was astonishing to be able to make direct one-to-one contact with nice, good, honest people right in front. It was stunning. I loved it, that immediate context: get the fucking management out of the way.”
KEY ALBUMS
