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Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
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Track Listings
| 1. Meissa |
| 2. Lyra |
| 3. Tarazed |
| 4. Lupus |
| 5. Ankaa |
| 6. Altair |
| 7. Terebellum |
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awe and Sanctity in the Stars,
By Richard S. Warner "Saraswati-Son" (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Equatorial Stars (Audio CD)
Robert Fripp and Brian Eno's collaborations span four decades and yet their releases are few and isolated, with many years in between. Each one, then, becomes something of a milestone and is a window into the musical lives of these two low-profile, but hugely influential, geniuses. 2004's "The Equatorial Stars" is, then, another instalment in the line of rarified work by two great masters of experimental, cutting edge music.The Fripp and Eno albums have always been side projects for the two prolific, deeply involved artists and so their rarity alone warrants attention when they appear. This particular album really stands out for it's sheer beauty, evenly and sensitively laid out progression and it's hushed, awe-filled sanctity. Taking the names of stars along the equatorial belt for inspiration, Fripp and Eno have fashioned an album of gorgeous, haunting, ambient soundscapes, unique in all their work for it's reverence and admirable restraint. Each piece stands apart but at the same time joins in a seamless movement appropriately akin to a slow scan across a sea of stars. No longer confined to a specific technological procedure as in the first two F&E albums, both artists have been freed by technical innovations to really give their all with much more versatile and broader palettes then they've hitherto been able to. The result is awe-inspiring and the music continuously opens up, layer after layer, upon repeated listenings. So while it can be called ambient, it is still, nevertheless, highly complex and enormously detailed work. Some of "The Equatorial Stars" harkens back to Eno's "Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks" of 1983 and some of it shares similar territory explored by artists such as Vidna Obmana and B. Lustmord. Fripp's guitar work is sublimated to the cause and is often indistinguishable from Eno's electronics. At other times his signature lines and ornaments are forward but not at any time does he perform with the slightest aggression. Eno's soundscapes and treatments provide atmospherics beyond anything cliche and truly give a sense of the vastness and unfamiliarity of the cosmic deep. While there is nothing "spacey" about this music, thank god, it nevertheless suits its theme perfectly. This must've been a very special project for the two artists, something exceptional from a unique moment in their respective times. I think, clearly, "The Equatorial Stars" is Robert Fripp and Brian Eno's best work together. it is an excellent and matchless project that could actually qualify as one of the most perfectly realized ambient releases on the market. Stellar.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Mid Summer's Dream,
By
This review is from: Equatorial Stars (Audio CD)
The best way to "get" Brian Eno's Music for Airports is find yourself a lonely corner at a big Airport while waiting for your flight, and put it on. In the same context if you want to "get" Equatorial Stars, find your self a reclining lawn chair , a cloudless starry Summer night... and put this on.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.9 out of 5 stars (23 customer reviews) 55 of 56 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A superb return to collaboration.,
By Michael Stack - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Equatorial Stars (Audio CD)
In many ways, this album is everything one would have expected-- somehow the natural successor to "No Pussyfooting" and "Evening Star". In other ways, its nothing like I would have expected-- the usual stamps of Fripp and Eno's recent work seems to be missing.Its really quite hard to largely identify the identity of the musician generating the sound on much of this material, there's obvious stuff (we'll come to that in a minute), but as a rule, the backgrounds could be either of them. Sonically, it moves through a number of backdrops, with delicate, percussive, synthish loops dominating the early part of the record ("Meissa", "Lyra", "Tarazed"), wheras the middle of the record feels more like their old collaborations updated, the sort of modern Fripp soundscapes being more apparent ("Lupus", "Ankaa"). The remainder of the album features on track that is totally unexpected, the downright funky "Altair", with its train shuffling rhythms, drum loops, and funky guitar (in ways similar to material from the Eno/Schwaum "Drawn from Life" record), and the closer, "Terebellum", is an aggressive, haunting, and almost angry sounding piece almost reminiscent of "Radiophonics" or the other more aggressive soundscapes. Over this material, Fripp largely solos using a variant of his legendary fuzz tone-- its a bit mellower, and rounder though, similar to his leads on "Starless" and "The Power to Believe Part II" but in a more hushed feel. So that tells not much, the real question is, what's it like? Largely an ambient affair, the collaboration is what you'd expect-- there's no real incindiery moments here-- don't look for a "Baby's On Fire", but it is comparable to their previous collaborations in quality, and it certainly sounds nothing like Crimson. Some of it is full of delicate beauty ("Lyra"), some of its just a blast ("Altair"), some of its actually quite hard to listen to at all ("Terebellum"). For fans of ambient music, especially the work of these two gentelemen, this one will be quite rewarding. It falls short somehow of being a masterpiece, but it is really a great record. Recommended. 35 of 36 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Old Friends,
By Polysyllabite "RBlythe" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Equatorial Stars (Audio CD)
Somewhat more reminiscent of Eno's Music for Films and The Shutov Assembly recordings than of the two previous F & E releases, No Pussyfooting and Evening Star, The Equatorial Stars is still, I think, a fitting reprise. The two musicans continue to adhere to the original musical premise: Eno-created musical contexts for Fripp to solo over. Some of these pieces do, however, conjure the changes in ambient music in the last 25 years. "Tarazed" and "Lupus," for example, are sparser and more pulsed in places than NP and ES, their themes thinly drawn, and "Altair" is, in my opinion, a good bit darker than the 70's pieces, evoking rhythmic Thaemlitz with a bit of Lustmord thrown in. "Meissa," "Lyra," and "Terebellum" come closest to the original beauty of NP and ES, their stunning atmospherics aptly punctuated by Fripp, who is still unparalleled at creating those signature subdued single-note lines. F & E still have a corner on the more exquisite qualiities of ambient. Highest recommendation.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Welcome Reunion,
By William Scalzo - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Equatorial Stars (Audio CD)
Thirty years after their two groundbreaking ambient albums, No Pussyfooting and Evening Star, Fripp and Eno recorded this long-awaited sequel. As one can guess from the CD and track titles, the soundscapes this time around are meant to evoke outer-space and alien lands. But don't mistake this for space-rock, or any kind of rock for that matter. Fripp's own soundscapes of late have tended to be harsh and dissonant, but here he and Eno return to the archetypal earlier sound with Fripp's free-form, legato guitar lines stretching out over Eno's deep, mysterious atmospheres.Any track-by-track commentary on this type of recording would be redundant, so suffice it to say that fans of the duo's 70's collaborations will find The Equatorial Stars to be a perfect companion to No Pussyfooting and Evening Star. Superior ambient music by two of the masters of the genre. |
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