DUSTED MAGAZINE

Dusted Reviews

Robert Fripp & Brian Eno - Beyond Even (1992-2006)

today features
reviews charts
labels writers
info donate

Search by Artist



Sign up here to receive weekly updates from Dusted


email address

Recent Reviews

Jason Ajemian's Smokeless Heat - The Art of Dying

Matt Bauer - The Island Moved in the Storm

Harold Budd and Clive Wright - A Song for Lost Blossoms

Burning Star Core - Challenger

Circle X - Prehistory

Crystal Antlers - Crystal Antlers

Deerhoof - Offend Maggie

Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life

Morgan Geist - Double Night Time

Gilberto Gil - Gilberto Gil (Frevo Rasgado) / Gilberto Gil (Cérebro Eletrônico) / Expresso 2222

Grails - Doomsdayer’s Holiday

Group Inerane - Guitars from Agadez (Music of Niger)

Roy Harper - Stormcock

Roy Harper - Flat Baroque and Berserk

Roy Harper - Whatever Happened to Jugula?

Jackie O Motherfucker - Freedomland

John Phillips - Pussycat

Lambchop - OH (ohio)

Charlie Louvin - Steps to Heaven

Alex Moulton - Exodus

Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron & Fred Squire - Lost Wisdom

Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping

Orange - In the Midst of Chaos

Benoit Pioulard - Temper

Quintron - Too Thirsty 4 Love

Religious Knives - The Door

The Replacements - Tim / Pleased to Meet Me / Don’t Tell a Soul / All Shook Down

Marnie Stern - This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That

Sun Ra - Sleeping Beauty

V/A - Eccentric Soul: The Young Disciples

V/A - Where’s the Beat? Live in the WFMU Studios

Yo Majesty - Futuristically Speaking: Never Be Afraid

Yoro Sidibe - Yoro Sidibe

Dusted Reviews


Artist: Robert Fripp & Brian Eno

Album: Beyond Even (1992-2006)

Label: DGM

Review date: Nov. 23, 2007

Robert Fripp & Brian Eno - "Voices" (Beyond Even (1992-2006))


Robert Fripp and Brian Eno convened their first meetings in the 1970s and have managed to create music together throughout the decades since. Beyon Even gathers sketches and experiments from the last 15 years or so and combines them into a surprisingly coherent listening experience.

Long-time followers of Fripp and Eno will notice artifacts typical of each artist’s work from the represented eras: the looped space- jazz dub of Eno’s Nerve Net and The Drop; the fuzzed-out ostinatos of solo guitar Frippertronics; bass and drum with swirling improv redolent of Fripp’s various King Crimson spin-off ProjeKcts. Eno works his usual magic with effects and textures: filters, delays, metallically resonant and constantly morphing synth tones.

Since, however, the sort of treatments that Eno once pioneered have become an expected and even everyday part of pop and rock production now, it might well be the form and architecture of these pieces that remains more radical to current perceptions. Eno is an avowed dabbler in the art of making perfume, and floating, drifting constructions like “Dirt Loop” and “Voices” are unique in the way they seem to occupy an ambiguity between physicality and memory similar to that of scent.

Fripp’s contributions are no less crucial, of course. In addition to the wide-interval, distorted-tone rhapsodies and fearsome shreds that are his trademark, he also offers some gentle ruminations. The crystalline and spacious arpeggios of “Timean Sparkles” are utterly poetic in their mysterious and pure expression.

The pieces, disparate in mood and texture as they might be, are sequenced artfully. (The limited edition version of the release includes a second disc featuring the 13 tracks segued seamlessly, and this might well be the best way to experience these works.) In its variously tinted and constant flow of juxtapositions, the overall effect of Beyond Even is satisfyingly similar to that of Eno’s classic Music For Films releases.

By Kevin Macneil Brown

Read More

View all articles by Kevin Macneil Brown

Find out more about DGM

delicious digg google newsvine Technorati [Slashdot] [Reddit] [Facebook] [StumbleUpon]

©2002-2005 Dusted Magazine. All Rights Reserved.