Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

Rip It Up MAY 1994 - by Martin Bell

ROBERT FRIPP/BRIAN ENO: THE ESSENTIAL FRIPP & ENO

Fripp and Eno - two sides to the same coin. Fripp, the virtuoso guitarist, seemingly able to play one note for hours and Eno, the non-musician's musician and occasional producer to the stars. Their involvement in "popular music" has never been easy to pigeonhole but their wildly divergent careers have, on occasion, caused them to arrive at the same place at the same time with some quite unearthly results.

The first occasion was 1973's No Pussyfooting, a one track per side album which is reproduced in its entirety here. Put in historical context, you begin to realise just how groundbreaking this work is. The twenty-one minute The Heavenly Music Corporation not only set the scene for the ambient explosion, it also recalled the frenzied cacophony of The Velvet Underground. Others, notably George Martin and Brian Wilson, had experimented with the studio but no one had played it like an instrument. By looping and delaying Fripp's electronically treated guitar on two tape recorders, they were able to create an aural landscape fundamentally constant yet constantly changing. Eno remarked, "repetition is a form of change" - here was the proof.

With the exception of the last four tracks (techno candyfloss called Healthy Colours I-IV), this CD provides an essential document of the primitive beginnings of a musical genre.