robert fripp

You never know quite how people are going to turn out: they find bodies under the floorboards in the house of that polite boy next door, the rebel girl in school becomes a nun, and David Sylvian . . . .? When David Sylvian (born David Batt in Kent, 1958) first appeared on the music scene it was as a member of the glam rock band Japan and it...
> essentialelsewhere/2760/david-sylvian-gone-to-earth-1986/

Not being a great watcher of mainstream television means I happily get to miss things like Australia's Got Talent. (I didn't doubt it, the Easybeats, the Church and AC/DC are great.) But that also means people like me miss someone like 18-year old acoustic guitarist Robinson who won the "play-off" in 2008. Let it be said...
> music/2820/joe-robinson-time-jumpin-universal/

Anyone taken by the jerky and anxious sound of the Essential Elsewhere album by the Feelies, Crazy Rhythms, might find this one a similarly enticing proposition. Released in '83 by a four-piece out of Athens, Georgia fronted by Vanessa Briscoe's yelp'n'edgy vocals, this was the second album for Pylon who were much admired by the young REM....
> music/2707/pylon-chomp-more-dfa/

For the first two-thirds of this album featuring guitarist Abercrombie, violinist Mark Feldman, bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Joey Baron, the more vigorous emotions are kept in check: the tunes breeze by on Abercrombie's fluid and smooth, warm tone, Feldman offers the barests of suggestions of gypsy violin (and its attendant humours) -- and...
> music/2690/john-abercrombie-quartet-wait-till-you-see-her-ecm-ode/

Pub quiz time and your starter for 10 points: Who was the drummer in Talking Heads? “Okay there was David Byrne and . . . Tina Weymouth on bass and . . . Any of you guys know?” “Jerry . . . Harrison? Yeah, Jerry Harrison was the guitarist and the drummer was . . . . . .” Okay, let’s flip all the cards...
> essentialelsewhere/2641/the-feelies-crazy-rhythms-1980/

Like many artists on the ECM label, the Norwegian guitarist Terje Rypdal is largely faceless: you could have listened to his albums for decades as I have done and still pass him in the supermarket and not recognise him. By my count he’s done about 20 albums under his own name on ECM, and appeared on almost as many others as one of...
> absoluteelsewhere/2591/terje-rypdal-ecm-guitarist-2009-the-career-and-careering-across-the-disc/

As the band most likely to be cited when the discussion turned to "post-rock", this five-piece from Chicago have been critically acclaimed for their magpie tendencies (they lift from prog-rock, free jazz, punk, post-punk, electronica, Can and other equally unconstrained Krautrock bands) but largely haven't connected with an audience...
> music/2527/tortoise-beacons-of-ancestorship-unspk/

Context is everything -- or almost everything -- at Essential Elsewhere, these being albums you can return to repeatedly so probably stand outside of time, yet are always born of a specific place and time. Even if they owe nothing to it. And these two albums - the first "pair" of Essential Elsewhere albums -- seem to owe very...
> essentialelsewhere/1970/best-of-elsewhere-reissues-2008-fripp-and-eno-no-pussyfooting-1973-and-evening-star-1975/

A true story from the battleground of fun: a few fortyjust wags finishing last bottles when someone mentions an album title which reduces the gathering to choking laughter for a good two minutes. As someone observed later, “it’s some album when just the title breaks you up.” True – but the album in question...
> absoluteelsewhere/1995/king-crimson-in-retrospect-a-childs-guide-to-early-days-in-the-kingdom/

The only sound in this small foyer is a huge fly buzzing monotonously and occasionally slapping itself into the windows. Peter, one of the guitarists studying at this retreat in Howick whispers “are you the journalist?” and our conversation is carried out in hushed voices so as not to disturb the 20 or so people in the room next...
> absoluteelsewhere/1975/robert-fripp-interviewed-1990-the-economic-man-at-work/

When I wrote the liner notes for Nigel Gavin's excellent Visitation album from late 06 I described him as "a musician without portfolio, a guitarist/composer whose work comfortably commands many different styles". Confirming that assessment were the list of people/bands he had worked with to that point: the Nairobi Trio, the Jews...
> music/1925/nigel-gavin-a-job-with-the-circus-dvd-by-costa-botes/

As mentioned in the previous posting of the Travis and Fripp album, when guitarist Fripp got into the studio alongside musician-without-portfolio Brian Eno for the albums Evening Star and No Pussyfooting in the early 70s a particular magic was created. Not ambient music (that was to follow from Eno) but more like music as an emotional...
> music/1771/fripp-and-eno-beyond-even-1992-2006-opal-southbound/

By coincidence this disc turned up as I was reading David Sheppard's fascinating (if fruitily written) biography of Brian Eno, On Some Faraway Beach.I was at the chapters about his work with avant-guitarist Robert Fripp on two of my favourite albums No Pussyfooting ('73) and Evening Star ('75) which seemed to define an art music within a rock...
> music/1735/travis-and-fripp-thread-southbound/

In a recent conversation this German-born Auckland-based guitarist mentioned an album of his I had forgotten about: it was Kling-Klang (on Ode) and at a guess came from some time in the early-to-mid 90s. His mention of it prompted me to get it out again because I had been very taken with it at the time. It was Haeder in a variety of...
> absoluteelsewhere/1156/peter-haeder-profiled-portrait-of-the-artist-as-musical-itinerant/

Sometimes in history there comes that rare conjunction of the man, the time and his art.In the case of Jean Michel Jarre it seemed they were all out of alignment. He could not have chosen a more inhospitable climate into which release his work.Jarre's album Oxygene came out in France in 1976 but wasn't given release in Britain until the...
> essentialelsewhere/816/jean-michel-jarre-oxygene-1977/

With the same refined band as on his ECM debut of three years or so ago, this Norwegian-American guitarist has once again crafted an album of subtle shades, gentle lyricism and persuasive melodies. At times you may hear suggestions of Pat Metheny at his most quietly romantic, at other times Young steps aside to let trumper Matthias Eick or...
> music/1461/jacob-young-sideways-ecm-ode/

Of the many dozens of diverse albums by Brian Eno -- who flared onto the music scene for the first two glam-louche Roxy Music albums -- this is the best window into his remarkable career. As a producer he was pivotal in the work of David Bowie, Devo, Talking Heads, U2 among many others. But he also created seminal albums of ambient music...
> essentialelsewhere/792/brian-eno-before-and-after-science-1977/

Auckland-based guitarist Nigel Gavin has appeared previously on Elsewhere -- see tag -- so it would be remiss if not downright rude to overlook this reissue of his excellent '03 solo album, which went largely ignored at the time as it came out on the small, independent Rouge label. Now getting national distribution through Ode, Thrum...
> music/1255/nigel-gavin-thrum-ode/

Guitarist Gavin is probably well known to more people than they realise: he has played with the Nairobi Trio, the Jews Brothers, created the guitar orchestra Gitbox Rebellion, and has been on albums by Wayne Gillespie, Ross Mullins and Whirimako Black. But it has always been his own albums -- limited edition and so under the radar for most...
> music/983/nigel-gavin-visitation-thrum-rhythmethod/

Guitarist Haeder -- who sometimes records as phaeder -- has certainly spread his talents widely: he's played avant-garde improvised music; made music for film and television; done an album of almost life-threateningly fast techno (Lotus Beat of 2003); and, as a longtime Buddhist, has recorded haunting deevotional chants. On Emerald however...
> music/852/peter-haeder-emerald-singularity-attar-ode/