THAT WHICH PASSES - 1995 SOUNDSCAPES, LIVE VOL. 3

This album, much like several other Fripp albums that came out in the mid-90's, is not even remotely "progressive", nor is it "rock". In fact, there is very little here that even sounds like a guitar, due to the extreme processing. I've seen it lumped in with New Age artists in record stores and in print reviews, but it rarely sounds like that style of music. I would describe it as perhaps "Electroacoustic", "Acousmatic", or "Experimental Electronic". I have several of these releases, and though they are ostensibly "live recordings", you will hear no sign of an audience. It's difficult to say how much of the aforementioned processing was done after the fact. Anyway, I find some of the tracks tension-inducing, and others transcendent (the other releases are similarly hit-and-miss). I happen to love the three styles listed above just as much as I love progressive rock. If you feel the same way, check this out. I can also recommend "1999..." and "Radiophonics...".

A musical reflection about death...

This album is classical Fripp soundscapes, but with less emotional content than in "A Blessing Of Tears". The songs are supposed to reflect the different emotional stages a dying person would go through, so the music is sometimes sad, sometimes ethereal, sometimes fearful, but most of the time very dissonant and not friendly to the listener.

The highlights on this album are the beautiful "On Acceptance" and "A Worm In Paradise" - dark and very emotional - with a special mention for the epic "New Worlds".

Rating: 63/100 (average)

Robert Fripp revisits his musical contemplations of mortality and grieving on this, the third volume in the 1995 Soundscapes series, and deftly accomplishes the most inspiring compilation of these electronic improvisations so far. Unlike the previous releases, 'That Which Passes' goes further than presenting full pieces as they appeared live, and the performances have been edited, retouched and pieced together in the studio to create much tighter ideas and more of a feeling of journeying, an ongoing narrative from track to track. Evolving yet again, as each Soundscape album does, the album features an even greater palette of sounds, effects, and dynamics, and exploits them fully to reach moments of sheer, piercing beauty throughout.

Like 'A Blessing Of Tears', the music emerges from Fripp's personal emotions and thoughts following the death of his mother, but in fact captures such depth that the tale reaches out to universal concepts of awakening, deep fear, loss, frustration, uncertainty, brooding, as well as vitality, awe, joy, and - a common Soundscape theme of which Fripp is a master - acceptance.

The first track progresses from an extremely quiet delay effect to a mighty wall of sound, portraying a huge onset of emotion, resignation... challenging and remorseless. This opening piece is strongly reminiscent of 'Radiophonics', but just as it builds to a near-intolerable density the whole thing ceases immediately as if startled out of a nightmare, and a very new Soundscape begins in the form of 'On The Approach Of Doubt'. A rising siren seems to lure the listener higher and higher, and at last breaks the surface - with such relief - out into a curious and gentle space, alive with drifting, accordant waves and the most distant of beautiful, questing voices. Much more typical of the album's material, this too soon faces fiery discord, and the album pushes on through a tough drama of highs and lows, rarely lingering too long and exploring feelings of more complexity and specificity than ever before.

Among the highest points are: the breathtaking 'On Triumph', where after the long ordeal of the previous track the music climbs to an incredible chorus, the unison of voice-like sounds suggesting an immense space, as if the all the doors of possibility are open at once; and 'The Fear Of Light', with its cruel, slicing drones forming some truly merciless chords and an atmosphere of profound unease you're unlikely to hear in any music other than Soundscapes.

As always, this is music that demands to be an experience in itself. It will not place itself in the background, allow low volume, or pleasantly accompany your social gatherings. The peace and time to catch every unfolding note is the key to really listening to Soundscapes... Forget everything you think you know about music, remind yourself just how insignificant one human being is in the scale of the universe... then immerse yourself, and feel that turning instead to utmost significance as you experience the power of creation and expression that one performer and one listener can share.

Robert Fripp's discography on soundscapes performances is enormous. Just a look on main catalogues and several references comes to show how much improvisatorial material he has achieved (especially in recent times). That symbolically denotes nothing else than his great understanding towards the concept and, more importantly, towards this concept's powerful essence (cause doing much, but weak is so much easier that achieving so much, of such staggering quality) and his immense power to comprehend an entire palette of nuances and of themes within the same concept, one that can deceive through similarity, yet one that reflects one moment, one themes, one shadow of imagination. Out of the entire discographic set that Robert Fripp provides, the ones denoted as grand volumes, as the peak of the style and as the fulminant performance are undoubtedly essential. For they go in expressing the best possible way for a listener to enter the musical universe and to exit with knowledge, with pleasure, with the complete sense of soundscapism. We are right now at the fourth expression, That Which Passes, that goes into another brilliant view, into another stable point of quality and into another state of splendid artifacts and concrete music. I find myself once more in the position of being unable to qualitatively make differences, as this one deserves the same credit as the ones before and as many of the ones to come (out of the past albums, I was indulgent perhaps only with 1999). This release will make a general impression of solid movement and of thrilling sensations.

(off-subject) As the references mention: All the recordings are taken from live soundscape performances in 1995, from two venues - The Goethe Institute of Buenos Aires during the week beginning on the evening of Monday 3rd. April and continuing through to Sunday 9th. April, 1995, and Washington Square Church on Friday 8th. and Saturday 9th. September 1995.

There was a range of difficult to apprehend moments that sort of describe the other two 1995 volumes (since this one is vol.3), a progression into the unknown space and the unrevealed essence. Well, this character is mainly a featured changed in That Which Passes, through the effect that the barriers are shattering and the ways and modes are open. The experience is illuminating, intensive in its form, shockwave in its manner, splendor in its impulse. Very open and very direct the methods, the expression and the impressions are derived from simple feelings and even more simple interpretations. The album can impress through a range of emotions and of musical, artistically effects. Some moments are acute generic havocs, while some go into a lament of fluid, condescend, fascinating, silent waves. Some are harsh and ravaging, while some tranquil and tendentious in the resisting power. Robert Fripp is a stickler for adhesion. The music treats the subject and the speech.

In a saddening, pessimist, disturbed resonance, the music's tone is of low heights that act grand. A sorrow impression persists, a ghostly movement is imagined, a slumber shadow presents itself in a voiled portrait. The world of which the music belongs is one of dark colors, of immobility, of auditive protuberances. A perspective into darkness. A perspective into darkness' light. The matter and the knowledge are once more conserved. The emotional pulse is one still, but of deadly spark. The journey is one hallucinating and of complete sensorial panic. Effects gather voices, echoes, screams and shallow whispers, arranging them in an orchestral dissonant diffusion and in a striking flame. The story seems never-ending. The view seems eternally fallen. The name, the list, the essence embrace the constant message of fading, of becoming immaterial, of sending the spirit out of the realistic tapes and records. Silence comes as a blessing. The repaus is after the coma-like surround that constantly invigorates itself and draws more themes, more moments, more effective and decreptive scales. That Which Passes is one of the most adequate scape treating the music's valences (hidden or to be deciphered) and leaving the background of details or of quality into a suspended manner or an already achieved one (saying that the evolution of the volumes draws the conclusion of a perfectioned style, therefore needing less the attention of accuracy, more the focus on the fragile dynamics of the melody).

Looks wonderful and very interesting. Refreshing taste of soundscapes and this accentuation over the composition will denote many things into the coming future. For now, this is an outstanding manifest, ending a year that privileges quality and performance, ending a triple-powered release and sensing the passion of the style and the extensions of the message.like few do. Recommended, as always and as all are.

"The surreal touch of the expressions, compiled with distinction, is a test of thorough confidence in the relation with one's soul and attention, and are depths gained, reaching far in effects and in implementations of inner voice and mutual feeling."

The third part of Robert's solo soundscape recordings continues the theme of facing death. The previous recording on this series was dedicated to his late mother, and that CD is one of the most touching ambient music experiences I have yet heard. In this release we move from act of mourning to more philosophical contemplations of death's nature and human's psyche confronting it. The music is recorded from Robert's solo concerts, and the album is a collage from these performance capture, so the album is actually an interesting hybrid; A studio produced and arranged album using material purely from live improvisations. The music starts soothingly and calmly, then moving towards more abstract, modern and troubling dimensions. In addition of electronic and synthetic sounds Robert uses some voice samples in his guitar, painting up some interesting human tones among the synthetic cinematopic aural sceneries. From philosophic point of view this is a good record, but as a listening experience I prefer many of his other solo recordings over this one. If you like modern abstract music, then these soundscapes are worth listening however.