Customer Reviews

Equatorial Stars

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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.

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.