18th JAN 1998
Just the day before this concert, Fripp had joined John Wetton, David Cross, and Bill Bruford in New York’s HMV shop to sign copies of the KC archive concert recording, The Night Watch. Although Crimson past and future were clearly on the creative calendar, Fripp nevertheless turned his attention back to the present moment and the fourth of his solo concerts. In Soundscapes a vector shift traditionally represents a transitional point where the air is metaphorically swept clean of the preceding ‘scape before the player moves on.
However, toward the end of the performance, on Hovering Bell Vector Shift, Fripp decides to linger awhile more than is his usual practice. Initially jangling with distorted bell tones that assault the ear and almost certainly make anyone in the audience who might have drifted off, before being carried off on waves of echoing piano notes endlessly cascading to circulate about the sonic space.
However, these tumbling clusters ultimately lead into a sepulchral area wherein individual notes briefly flare and glitter, like burning candles thrown into a deepening, unknowable abyss. Akin to the process of our eyes adjusting to unexpected darkness, our ears soon gradually discern a thrumming haze, against which a deep-end four-note motif shimmers with an air of mystery, gently repeating. Sounding not unlike something encountered in a David Lynch movie, despite its static nature, tension slowly accrues for several minutes before dissipating into silence.
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