It’s 1979. New Wave is everywhere. King Crimson has been inactive for three years. Whatever happened to…? "Schizoid Man", do you remember that? What about "Larks' Tongues in Aspic 2"? "Red"? What was that guy’s name? Worked with Eno and Bowie, and Van der Graaf Generator way back when. Something odd sounding. Fripp! That’s the guy! Robert, for the use of. He’s just released a solo album, "Exposure". Says it’s some ideas he thinks “could be commercial”.

It’s 2006. I’m still listening to and enjoying "Exposure" in its various versions 27 years later. The album begins with Fripp introducing his commercial ideas, making a false start, and giving a count-in to footsteps walking across a room to answer a ringing phone. It’s already clear to us after 30 seconds that Fripp’s idea of ‘commercial’ does not necessarily coincide with the rest of the world’s.

The phone is answered and we hear the riff to “You Burn Me Up Like A Cigarette”, a punk love song, sung by Daryl Hall, blasting down the line. A three-chord 4/4 Status Quodown, “You Burn Me Up…” is bouncing-off-the-walls music; 2 and a half minutes of pogoing followed by “Breathless”, a track in the tradition of King Crimson’s “Larks’…2” and “Red” mentioned above. A grinding thrashing, EVIL guitar line, growling bass, crashing drums, it’s the sound of nightmares, and infinitely heavier than most supposedly heavy rock bands can come up with.

Next is “Disengage”, oozing with menace. Another grinding riff and blood-curdling vocals by the rock singer’s rock singer, Peter Hammill, at his “Hendrix of the voice” best. Following this, Fripp gives us a breather with “North Star”, an MOR song that’s related to Fleetwood Mac’s famous “Albatross”, right down to the guitar gull noises. Vocals by Daryl Hall sounding more like Daryl Hall than he did in “You Burn Me Up…”

Then another love song, with Hammill in ballad mode on vocals. Although the lyrics aren’t particularly out there, “Chicago” still sounds creepy, and the way Hammill moans “I smile like Chicago” is purely satanic. But commercial? Next up, a real belter. “NY3” has another thrashing guitar, with crackling organ by Barry Andrews of XTC and voice cut-ups delineating a domestic argument between Father and Daughter. The music makes us uneasy as we listen to their disagreement. There’s violence in the air.

Another soft song now, with Terre Roche singing about “Mary”. This is not one of my favourite tracks on the album, although it provides much needed respite after “NY3”. Then comes the title track – “Exposure” – a funkier version of the track that appeared on Peter Gabriel’s second album. “It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering,” says JG Bennett of Sherbourne House, as Terre Roche’s “fritched” voice howls out the word ‘exposure’.

“Hääden Two” is another grinding guitar riff interspersed with cut-up vocals, including Fripp’s own “incredibly dismal, pathetic chord sequence”, just in case we were taking things too seriously, followed up by “it just has none of the qualities of your work that I find interesting. Abandon it.”

The album continues with a “Frippertronic” piece, “Urban Landscape”. Frippertronics was first used by Fripp on the “No Pussyfooting” album, a collaboration with Brian Eno, and involved the use of two tape recorders and delay lines to build up guitar atmospheres of ever-increasing density. The relatively peaceful atmosphere is shattered by another rocky guitar and organ piece, "I May Not Have Enough Of Me But I've Had Enough Of You", with Hammill and Roche on incomprehensible vocals. The ensuing 4-second snatch of stylus on record label noise, unrecognizable to the CD generation, has its own title.

Then comes an aural triptych – “Water Music I”, “Here Comes the Flood”, and “Water Music II”. The two “Water Music” pieces serve as a framework in which the centerpiece is an achingly beautiful version of Peter Gabriel’s “Here Comes the Flood” from his first solo album, sung by Gabriel himself.

Finally, after “Water Music II”, there is the postscript, in which Fripp admits that the whole exercise is ‘a big hoax’.

Many have complained that this album is too bitty, that the only thing holding it together is Fripp’s vocal inserts here and there. They’re wrong, though. As a ‘commercial’ album, it shows the various stands and styles Fripp was interested in at the time, and if that wasn’t enough, it’s the bridge between the Rock of 70’s King Crimson and the New Wave version which made their stunning entrance in 1981 with “Discipline”.

On a personal note, though, I find it’s an album that I come back to again and again. It’s always there in my subconscious – the way Hammill sings “delicate obscenities” in “Chicago”, or Gabriel’s voice on “Here Comes the Flood”. Get it. And get into it.

These notes refer to the original vinyl version. There are also two other versions floating about with some differences in track length and, in one instance, a different vocalist. It’s this version that does it for me, though.

Reviews Index