Robert Fripp - At the End of Time (DGM0701)

Analysis by Andrew Keeling

Threshold Bells - St. Paul's - summon the listener for this recent RF cd Soundscape offering. Recorded 'live' in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, on June 13th 2006 the music eventually centres on C and it's tritone F# for At the End of Time: St. Paul's. With an A natural and B natural an octave above, the music passes through E, B and D natural: Aeolian on F#. This is, on first listening, music of darkness, perhaps even darker than the earlier Radiophonics Soundscapes cd. F#/A natural continue to ground the music, with Eno-made 'orange' timbre developing into a soft sustained solo. Thinking in terms of the building one is led to think of the post-Restoration composer Maurice Greene's verse anthem, Lord Let Me Know Mine End. In some ways At the End of Time: St. Paul's recalls KC Discipline-period. There is movement and here it is softer yet no less intense. The momentum gives way to the opening bells, completed by a low F# bell sonority bringing the ABA sructure to a satisfactory close. (To be continued).

Again Evensong - Tallinn (an Estonian church) is prepared with bells. Here, the music is grounded on F# and choral-like without being choral. The music has a poignant edge through the addition of D natural. The 'orange' timbre has more or less replaced the fingerprint Fripp guitar sustain, heard throughout his work in the 1970's and sometimes beyond, by becoming a fingerprint itself. This is sacred music through and through. In a post-Christian culture it's of little wonder that some audiences on the G3 tour (Vai, Satriani & Fripp) found Soundscapes difficult. This isn't music to be heard so much as to be held inwardly. It is contemplative - something the West is fast forgetting. The music develops with a low A natural (F# minor and A major are, after all, related keys) amd a bell solo develops into the coda. This is, to my ears at least, one of RF's finest Soundscapes with an intensity. It segues into At the End of Time - Broadchalke. Musical unity is sutained with the F#/A motive. The music is even darker than the St. Paul's ATEOT. In this way it gives us a glimpse of the meaning of the word Religiare - 'binding back to God' it certainly is, coupled with the church setting: a place, as RF has mentioned elsewhere, where we can give music our full attention. This is music that has some connection with the organ music of Olivier Messiaen, Le Banque Celeste for example, but here without chromatic inflections. (to be continued). The intensity is sustained by the octave solos which have the habit of decaying at the appropriate moments.

Evensong - Viljandi marks a natural break in the proceedings. Beginning with organ-setting and an oscillating minor 3rd - this time C/Eb - the key centre is a tritone away from the F# of the St. Paul's and Broadchalke music. This could be an organ voluntary. In terms of key-centres it moves between C minor, Bb major as well as involving a low G natural. All the pitches point to the transposed Dorian Mode. This is my personal favourite with the addition of the more strident 'mixture' stops. The coda introduces the familiar bells complete with references to the previous C-Eb-Bb-G bass. Finally the music simply disappears into the architecture. Track 8, Future Shift, uses the same chromatic bell motif as St. Paul's but with a more striking sonority and the doom-laden F#/C tritone.

Evensong: Haapsalu uses an organ Diapason setting together with the 'orange' timbre. The harmonic scheme is C minor/G minor and Bb major recalling material from A Blessing of Tears. The coda is a lengthy carillon of Bb pentatonic a Major 3rd away from the F# centre, providing a resolution to the album as a whole.

This latest Soundscape collection from Robert Fripp is the work of an artist who sounds as if he's made peace with himself; a musician who has made the transition through business and personal grief. At the End of Time is a thoroughly rewarding album which surpasses the work of many other contemporary so-called 'ambient' albums.

September 2007