time has not been easy for my relationship with robert fripp. when i was just hitting puberty, "in the court of the crimson king" played continuously and i thought this guy could do no wrong. here was a guy who demanded to sit down while playing, tuned his guitar in 5ths (and in fact had a whole musical philosophy and accompanying workshop i later learned about), and was the principal creative force behind some of the most challenging music i've heard before or since.but sometimes even old friends can have idiosyncrasies that wear down the nerves. i mean, this guy obviously thinks that rock n' roll should feel like a trip to the dentist. he waxes philosophical about redemption and whatnot in publications like Guitar Player. he claims that the idea for an album came to him in a sauna. he dresses like middle management. but the proof is in the pudding, and what a complex and robust pudding it is. exposure is unemployed fripp, literally between jobs in that one can find parallels to both preceding and subsequent works.
some of the stuff is in the "lark's tongues" tradition (breathless, ny3), others are laden with his patented frippertronics (basically a pretentious term for a tape delay). several feature enticing vocal cameos from peter hammill (van der graaf generator), and peter gabriel. the only one i find inexplicable is "you burn me up i'm a cigarette," which basically is the unholy union of fripp's warbley vocals over a little richard rave-up. but this bizarre turn is still enjoyable, as is the rest of this record.
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