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Re: Looper's Essential Listening revisited: the 1980's



Okay, a bit wordy but I'll carve it down.

Fripp's "Let the Power Fall" (1981):

At the time this came out distribution of vinyl was weird, and 
inconsistent 
depending on how far outside a major metro area you lived.  In New Jersey 
I 
had a little trouble at first finding RF's work, until this album came 
out. 
I found it on a whim scan of the 'F' section - during a time when one 
would 
hear comments from other people in line for shows (not RF, but Lou Reed 
and 
a Kitchen benefit) about "Frippertronics", and "Roscotronics".  Shortly 
after this RF was written up in the NY Times for having achieved a major 
coup with three record companies, getting distribution for a number of 
releases; as such the effect to me was that "Let the Power Fall" was like 
the drop of water that broke the dam.  Later it was easy to find releases 
like "Exposure", "The League of Gentlemen", and (to a much, much lesser 
extent) "Sacred Songs".  In the process RF wrote some stunning articles 
about what he was "doing" with all this.  It all had the effect of a great 
coming-together of forces, at the behest of a singular powerful creative 
force.  And an example for us all.

To one who had been following RF and Eno's collaborations since "No 
Pussyfooting" (let alone just the articles coming from Keyboard, Musician, 
and Guitar Player at the time) knew, LTPF presented a natural though 
minimalistic evolution of the process first used by RF, now termed 
"Frippertronics".  The pieces are built in front of the listener, a 
pattern 
constructed for the most part without solos on top, and by listening to 
the 
patterns I grew to feel as if RF were presenting examples to unseen 
students.  This seemed in the spirit of the diagram on the back of Eno's 
"Discreet Music": as if to say, "Here's how it's done.  Now go off and 
work 
with this."  While the method had been used before DM by other people, DM 
illustrated the process on the back of the album cover.  It was made into 
an 
easily-obtainable thing (so long as you had two reel-to-reel tape decks, a 
long reel of tape, a compressor, and a stable surface to put it on) in 
comparison to what had formerly just been "experimental music".  When RF 
called what he was doing "Frippertronics" he simply BRANDED the process. 
What made it "Frippertronics" was the ingredient of RF.  This meant in a 
way 
that, should I do the same thing, I could call it "Spudtronics" (and I 
have 
at times, though privately).

The works are titled in sequence, by years.  In some ways this titling 
causes a detaching between title and song content, not uncommon to art, 
but 
at the time considered dangerous (or even subversive!) if not bad 
marketing 
by the Big Five.  As a result however, the listener is freed to attach 
whatever meaning one likes to the pieces.  Does "1984" remind you of a 
time 
when you listened to LTPF in 1984?  So be it, implies RF.  Great art often 
invites such participation.  In LTPF, we are given precise sketches based 
upon a simple blueprint, and invited to do so ourselves.  And, as Loopers 
Delight would strongly indicate, so we have.