Live Frippertronics performances taken from recordings in New York City between July and August 1981. Mixed and Produced by David Singleton from audio restored by Alex R. Mundy.
After completing the first round of concerts with a revived King Crimson starting in May 1981, Fripp headed over to the USA where he began a week-long residency at Washington Square United Methodist Church on 135 W Fourth Street in New York. Built in 1860, the church had historically been home to many congregations but in more recent years had become the venue for groups such as the Black Panthers, Gay Men’s Health Crisis and numerous arts organisations.
The series of Frippertronics concerts were held in aid of a Soho-based theatre group and they find the guitarist using his technique of slowly building the music from the ground up, step by step. It’s an approach which demonstrates how the addition or subtraction of a single note can change the entire mood of a piece as we move in the space of a few bars from an atmosphere of pensive anticipation to one of yearning hope. In an interview with the Melody Maker published just weeks before these concerts, Fripp was asked why he continued to perform Frippertronics concerts. “It gives me a way of working with intimate contact with members of an audience...It's almost an excuse to put me in a situation where one has the audience, performer and music, and in a certain kind of way something remarkable can happen. And that has happened to me, and it's not possible in a group...Frippertronics is the most enjoyable means of playing I've ever found.”
After completing the first round of concerts with a revived King Crimson starting in May 1981, Fripp headed over to the USA where he began a week-long residency at Washington Square United Methodist Church on 135 W Fourth Street in New York. Built in 1860, the church had historically been home to many congregations but in more recent years had become the venue for groups such as the Black Panthers, Gay Men’s Health Crisis and numerous arts organisations.
The series of Frippertronics concerts were held in aid of a Soho-based theatre group and they find the guitarist using his technique of slowly building the music from the ground up, step by step. It’s an approach which demonstrates how the addition or subtraction of a single note can change the entire mood of a piece as we move in the space of a few bars from an atmosphere of pensive anticipation to one of yearning hope. In an interview with the Melody Maker published just weeks before these concerts, Fripp was asked why he continued to perform Frippertronics concerts. “It gives me a way of working with intimate contact with members of an audience...It's almost an excuse to put me in a situation where one has the audience, performer and music, and in a certain kind of way something remarkable can happen. And that has happened to me, and it's not possible in a group...Frippertronics is the most enjoyable means of playing I've ever found.”
