Re: Frippertronics and soundscapes

[Eric Williamson <erwill@suitandtieguy.com>]

On Sunday, June 15, 2003, at 12:32  AM, Terry Blankenship wrote:
> soundscapes. Have any of you heard any of his more
> recent soundscape CDs and what did you think?

what do i think of it?

well, i like his tape delay work. my favourite frippertronics record is 
God Save The Queen/Under Heavy Manners, as it's kind of a good 
catch-all album for what he was trying to accomplish at the time.

soundscapes (being his work from 1994 and beyond) is a different story 
...

i would say that it is of personal spiritual significance second only 
to Bach's liturgical music. what that man can do with a sawtooth wave, 
delay, and a pitch shifter is ubelievable to me. i'm not saying that 
it's "better" than what other masters of looping such as David Torn 
(who is also close to my heart) or Andre (whose rhythmic looping work 
impresses me greatly) or Robert Rich (who is definitely _the_ master of 
ambient music for my money), i'm just saying that i feel an intense 
spiritual connection to the music.

i enjoy the new Crimson albums, but if it needs to stop i can live with 
that. however, if Bob came out in his journal saying that he was 
throwing in the towel with soundscapes, it would make me cry. i would 
really like to hear more "applied soundscapes" work like on nineties 
albums by the Grid, the Beloved, and No-Man. that Beloved album in 
particular is very sweet. i think that Bob doesn't think anyone likes 
his soundscapes discs, and i know very few people that listen to them 
regularly. one sound engineer friend of mine in particular feels the 
need to complain about Fripp's "colostomy bag" playing whenever he 
talks about his favourite rock band: king crimson. although i think he 
may just be tweaking me on that ...

Andre made the (well-observed) point that Bob's Long Delay Stuff is not 
the only application of looping, and that there are much more avenues 
in looping to explore as a solo musician and one shouldn't get too 
swept up in the Fripp style so as to shut the doors to those other 
directions. i think that's important to remember as well, but i totally 
ignore that warning. i prefer to construct much of my rhythmic and 
structural enviornment within the sequencer (i use Numerology, for it 
is highly suited to improvisitory sequencey music), and my interest in 
looping is (and has always been) highly derivative of Fripp and Torn's 
textural side ... without shame. when i had a band (which was an 
organ/guitar/drums thing) i would often start up the Ambient Machine in 
the middle of a soul or reggae tune and build a loop with my right hand 
on a synthesiser (my left hand and foot stayed on the organ and played 
the bass) while the guitar player soloed. or when my solo came i'd 
build a "suitscape" with the synth and then play the solo proper with 
upper manual of the Hammond. for that application (ethereal texture as 
a "sonic glue"), i think there's plenty more mileage in the 
long-delay-with-sustained-tones-and-signal-processing paradigm of 
working.

btw, harmonised delay loops sound AMAZING through a valve Leslie!

now, the guitarist i'm currently playing with likes doing the ethereal 
stuff, but he knows i'm more into that. so he makes more quirky, 
rhythmic loops. he's doing so well with it that i gave him my TSR-24 
for his birthday, because i thought he deserved it for doing so much 
with so little (he does rhythmic loops with my old RDS-8000, which i 
also gave him, and and old analogue delay rack unit. i think doing 
rhythmic looping with an RDS is pretty balls.) i'm really proud of him 
for stretching so much with the delay line (both figuratively and 
literally: he loves that Time knob!).
---
Eric Williamson
www.suitandtieguy.com