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Robert Fripp - Robert Fripp & The League of Crafty Guitarists: Show Of Hands CD (album) cover

ROBERT FRIPP & THE LEAGUE OF CRAFTY GUITARISTS: SHOW OF HANDS

Robert Fripp

Eclectic Prog

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convocation
4 stars A real blast! This music is very amazing for it's lively diversity. I only wish Fripp would make these sessions more frequent. Each piece is a lively and continually unfolding experience. Composed primarily of acoustic guitarists spinning their own spiraling musical lines. A Connecticut Yankee...is especially unique, invoking impressions of asian gamelans. There is an occasional vocalist and violin line; but by and large, guitars dominate. The broader musical possibilities are numerous: one cannot resist wondering how one would weave clay pots, and other percussion instruments, an acoustic bass, sitar, etc. into this note-full fabric. A real pleasure.
Report this review (#113780)
Posted Tuesday, February 27, 2007 | Review Permalink
FlashFirer
5 stars A very unusual approach to the progressive classical guitar setting, this excellent studio album introduces new concepts into our ears by dealing with music in a way that could only be the result of a weird and somewhat philosophical seminar like Guitar Craft.

All of these songs are excellently well-developed and have, doubtlessly, been put much effort into. What comes out of each of the virtuoso members of the League can only be described as stunning, and when they all split to perform individual mind-boggling riffs, it is astonishing and remarkable that they cans till hold their pace and make the song work: all the inidividual phrases go great together and complement each other.

Some of the songs are very beautiful and strongly convey the feelings they must have been supposed to convey. From the opening Eye of the Needle to the beautiful Scaling the Whales, up to a somewhat explosive Asturias, you'll feel like shaking your head to each song and listen to the whole thing more than you'd expect to.

Notable, too, are the female vocals that open and close the concert, with a few breaks inbetween the guitar songs to let the listener relax from the tsunami of notes they're being thrown at. These are quite delightful, specially when you get familiar with the singer's unusual and abrupt tone changes, reminding you of someone playing a guitar - maybe Robert Fripp himself? - and with some good lyrics, too.

All in all, a remarkable experience to hear someone break the mold so clearly. Highly recommended, and doubtlessly essential to those interested in its unique style in dealing with LOTS of different players at a time.

Report this review (#184308)
Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2008 | Review Permalink
Evolver
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Crossover & JR/F/Canterbury Teams
4 stars This is a very nice album from Robert Fripp & The League of Crafty Guitarists, a collection of students from Fripp's guitar craft course, where he took guitar players of all different levels, and molded them in his image. In this case, that's not such a bad thing.

The album is a set of mostly short, lush acoustic guitar pieces, all in a similar style to what Fripp had been playing in the eighties and early nineties: complex pieces, based on individual guitars playing somewhat repetitive lines in different timesignatues, so that different sections of each instrument's part comes together at different times, creating almost hypnotic patterns. And this recording is a beautiful example of that effect.

And no one played Frippertronics!

Report this review (#253730)
Posted Monday, November 30, 2009 | Review Permalink

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