Robert Fripp – exposure trilogy

My first blog will be about the stunning Robert Fripp Exposure project. Resulting in some interesting album, in the later part of the 70’s.

The trilogy was never as he intended, especialy due to the late release of SS, but its still easy to find a lot of similarities between the albums.

Daryl Hall, Sacred Songs (recorded 1977 released 1980)

Peter Gabriel, (II – Scratch) (1978)

Robert Fripp, Exposure (1979)

And more so, because they recorded several versions of some of the songs on Exposure, resulting in the so called third edition bonus disc (2006).

Fripp put it like this : “What I was trying to do in the original trilogy was to investigate the ‘pop song’ as a means of expression … I think it’s a supreme discipline to know that you have three to four minutes to get together all your lost emotions and find words of one syllable or less to put forward all your ideas. It’s a discipline of form that I don’t think is cheap or shoddy.”

Another angel on this project, that is interesting, is how Fripp wanted the sound, the stripped down vocals production, the very “retro” mix, is so much in opposition to what prog was about to become, with Yes Genesis, 80’s King Crimson  and the Neo-prog wave, of “overproduced” albums, that was to become the plague of the next 20 years of music. Fripp made the sound that many find modern today, in the late 70’s.

Everyone interested in Fripp and/or Gabriel, should take the time to listen trough these 3 albums, in one long session, starting with SS, and ending with Exposure, it’s a wonderfull journey.