That Which Passes: 1995 Soundscapes, Vol. 3

Artist: Robert Fripp
Label: Discipline Us
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Live
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 633367950727
EAN: 0633367950727
ASIN: B000005ONS

Release Date: 1997-03-18

That Which Passes: 1995 Soundscapes, Vol. 3

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Tracks:

On Acceptance
On The Approach Of Doubt
The Leap
A Worm In Paradise
New Words
On Triumph
On Awe
This Too Shall Pass
The Fear Of Light
A Time To Die

Similar Items:

Radiophonics: 1995 Soundscapes, Vol. 1
A Blessing of Tears: 1995 Soundscapes, Vol. 2
Love Cannot Bear
The Equatorial Stars
1999 Soundscapes: Live in Argentina

Customer Reviews:

Great improvisational prowess.......2007-03-09

Robert Fripp can be considered an "experimental" artist. He experiments with sound using a guitar, synthesizers, loops, and delays. His Soundscape series is a wonderful collection of improvisational compositions. I use them to relax, to write and read to, and of course simply listen to. Fripp is the originator of King Crimson, and those who are after the same sort of sound will be disappointed here. However, if you listen closely to much of Crimson, you will hear Fripp's guitar work forming the foundation of much of that music as well. There are no drums, no anything except for Fripp and his Frippertronics. These offer the person looking for something different a chance to broaden their musical perspectives.

Intense and startling........2005-05-17

"That Which Passes" is the third volume of live soundscapes performances by Robert Fripp from 1995. Soundscapes are a digital loop based solo guitar performance, firmly lodged in the realm of ambient music, and clearly the successor of Eno's Frippertronics scheme. The solo soundscape performances are largely orchestral in form and are totally improvised, although this album was assembled from live performances to make a coherent statement. Whereas Volume 2 was reflections on the death of the guitarist's mother, this volume is a general reflection on death. Personally, I feel that in many ways this somewhat hampers the music and takes away from the somewhat organic nature of the soundscape performances.

Nonetheless, the album is interesting, and in many ways, certainly more of a cohesive statement-- Fripp uses his editing to establish and build moods, referencing in sound the styles of playing he performed on previous albums. The tracks tend to be shorter, and they don't stand apart as well as material on either "Radiophonics" or "A Blessing of Tears". At times, the aggressive nature of the theme results in harsh and difficult to listen to music, similar to "Radiophonics", at times it maintains the stunning beauty of "A Blessing of Tears". And it does have the haunting and complete brilliant "A Worm in Paradise", one of the best and most emotive soundscape recordings Fripp has done.

This is a difficult record to get into, the superior "A Blessing of Tears" will serve as a better introduction to the genre. This may be a good second place to look, however.

Sonic abstractionism.......2003-06-06

Three reviews into Robert Fripp's series of Soundscape albums, I'm still having trouble explaining just what all this noise sounds like. Perhaps that's because while each album is created in the same way (improvising varying layers of hazy synth-guitar improvisations one atop the other all at once), each has a feel all its own. Radiophonics is an experiment in pure sound; A Blessing of Tears is a portrait of beauty that emerges from (and transcends) sadness. That Which Passes? A meditation on death and dying. Robert doesn't resort to anything as maudlin as lyrics or even melodies suggesting something ominous; he gives us the sonic equivalent of an abstract painting where the artist just splashes paint randomly everywhere. Free of conventional forms and frameworks, it's the kind of thing everyone experiences in their own way. The liners are filled with abstract pictures. The tracks consist of vague hazy synth clouds with hardly any definite notes, and any harmonies are implied rather than played. Soundscapes seem like a way of projecting emotions into pure sound, with TWP's themes revolving around awe, doubt, wonder and fear - to my ears at least.

On one hand, this kind of music could really be associated with almost anything; the backdrop is provided by whatever's in the listener's mind. On the other.. knowing what Robert was thinking when these 'Scapes were created, it's even more impressive just how accurately and honestly he's able to put it into sound. "On Awe" somehow *feels* like the presence of something great and wonderful, despite the interference of some occasional electronic bleeps. "The Leap" moves from a slow chorus of vague human voices to a wild snowballing turbulence of noise and fury. "This Too Shall Pass" gives a vague impression of inevitability and acceptance. "New Worlds" creates a, well, world of mesmerizing sonics by soaring through grand interstellar territory over the stretch of ten minutes.

However, like its predecessors, this disc is also good for creating a sonic background all its own without any associations. I certainly don't spend 43 minutes deeply pondering over mortality and death every time I give it a spin, although these grand pillars of sound do often make me imagine vast reaches of outer space. It can make a relatively unobtrusive aural background, though there's also enough going on to occupy your attention if you listen without distractions. For a mesmerizing Soundscape of pure soothing beauty, go for A Blessing of Tears first. This one is occasionally dark and scary, but if the idea of ambient sound sculptures appeals to you, this disc still shouldn't disappoint.

ALL ALONE.......2002-05-03

No question, a difficult fellow. I've listened to Fripp's work in many forms, for many years. With the "League of Gentlemen" the work exhibits punk tendencies. On "Exposure" it mixes and matches depending on the style of the guest artiste. Keith Tippett turns up early, on "Poseidon". That influence, and that of Fripp's work with Centipede are all over King Crimson's "Lizard" and "Islands", while McDonald, Giles and Lake were responsible for most of the writing on "In the Court of the Crimson King". Even his earliest ambient work seems mostly by a band that might be called "Eno With Someone Who Can Actually Play." Fripp's best work, in my opinion anyway, occurs under the influence of Bruford, Wetton, Cross and Muir. Historically, Fripp's work often seems to be more like whatever or whoever he happens to be around than strictly his own. Not a bad thing really: just because one can play an instrument does not also mean one can consistently develop one's own style. If Fripp doesn't have his own style, at least he has technique. (An interesting experiment: compare some of his solos on the Giles Giles and Fripp demos with, say, his solos years and years later on Eno's "Another Green World": despite time and practice, they're pretty much the same).

Do his soundscapes finally touch on something all his own, or are they just another exercise in technique?

There is no question that here, he leaves his familiar techniques behind to carve out relatively unexplored or at least largely ignored areas. Unlike the earlier "loop" experiments with Eno, these pieces do not tend to repeat. They are all very linear, very sweeping. Ocassionally you will imagine that you hear what corresponds to a concrete sound: flowing water, birds, wind or a catastrophic collapse. These are, after all, called "soundscapes", so we expect to hear beyond the instrument. By design or by accident, we are taken to a few remarkable places as we listen, but we arrive without a map. That's because the sounds typically remain "thin" and fairly two-dimensional as the pieces run their usually uncharted course. While the tonal / atonal characteristics begin to set a mood, the overall effect never really acheives an interior set of relationships, a sense of progression or structure. Instead, they wander. Where Stockhausen, Ligeti, Panufnik, Henry Cowell (not Cow), Tangerine Dream and a host of others have been through this way before offering highly structured, layered and deliberate soundscapes, I would guess Fripp is simply editing improvs.

What matters here is the Fripp's play avoids the sugar-sweet and dumb-sequencer thumping nonsense of so many recordings that get lumped into this category. But the problem with these soundscapes is an obvious one and you can prove it if you just try this: With or without forty years of guitar playing experience, take a few hours and sit down with the instrument of your choice and a few signal processing boxes and make your own. You'll find that, with or without technique, this kind of stuff is pretty much within easy reach.

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