Fripp & Eno were live in Paris at the Olympia on the Boulevard des Capucines on May 28, 1975.
This was the fifth date on the duo’s only concert tour which took in Spain, France and the UK. Audience responses were decidedly mixed, with many likely to have been expecting something that sounded more like King Crimson. There had been booing, cancellations, equipment failures. All part of the hazardous undertakings of live performance. Instead what was being presented was ground-breaking electronic music, part pre-recorded, part improvisational, complete with avant garde film projections.
Fripp and Eno onstage in Paris, in front of a film projection of Malcolm le Grice's Berlin Horse.
Fripp and Eno Paris press conference.
Everything ran smoothly in Paris, and DGM painstakingly restored the concert for release in 2011 using Eno’s original backing tapes along with several audience recordings from the night.
Available to download or buy on CD
The following is an excerpt from Al Okada’s sleevenotes that accompany the CD release:
Starting with the pre-recorded primordial drone ‘Water on Water’, the duo eventually walks on stage. Fripp begins playing through the “Enotronic system” (since Eno, not Fripp operated the tape machines on this tour). It's important to note that at this time, the mechanics of the Revox tape delay system was a mystery to the guitarist. This must have surely added a heavy dose of Eno’s "idiot glee" to the entire proceedings. Fripp moves this piece into uncharted territories with short volume pedal sweeps of lunacy before detaching from the delay system and beautifully soloing over the familiar backing loop of ‘Swastika Girls’. Very astute listeners will detect the unrealized main theme from King Crimson’s ‘Blue’ off the top. An intermission has the audience treated to Eno’s seminal ‘Discreet Music’ before the duo return to the stage with another improvised loop morphing into the now familiar ‘Wind On Water’ landscape. The sublimely serene ‘A Near Find in Rip Pop’ follows with Fripp soloing over a beautiful, strummed guitar piece (from the ‘Evening Star’ sessions) enhanced with synthetic animal screeches utilized months later on Eno’s ‘Zawinul / Lava’ track. Then just as you feel relaxed, Eno’s loop changes to something akin to a gigantic, looming dark cloud as Fripp hits the distortion pedal and fires off some solos of truly monstrous intensity. Eno gently takes the proceedings back down to Earth again by introducing the now infamous ‘Evening Star’ backing loop over which Fripp treats us to yet another wonderful solo before leaving the stage again, while ‘An Iron Frappe’ continues to envelop the crowd. The duo reappears for the final ‘Softy Gun Poison’ complete with tapes of sinister laughter and mysterious chatter (foreshadowing moments of Fripp’s upcoming ‘Exposure’), before leaving the stage for the last time, while (the then unknown) ‘An Index of Metals’ terrorizes the bewildered audience as they exit the venue. All in all, this lucky Paris audience was treated with the entirety of both classic albums as well as enough new material to constitute a third. As a bonus, we are also presented with Eno’s stage tapes in pure format including Test Loops from the sound check. What more could you ask from a live recording? Absolutely essential listening.
