EXPOSURE

Following the dissolution of King Crimson after their Red album, Fripp thought he'd retire from music. There's an audio recording out there featuring Fripp on the NYC radio staple The Nightbird in 1975 where one can clearly hear the pain in his voice when talking about his experiences in the band. Fripp collaborated with Brian Eno and David Bowie in 1977 and this rekindled his love for music, and he subsequently set out defining his post Crimson image producing records for Peter Gabriel, Daryl Hall, and folk sisters the Roches.

Man does this debut do a terrific job foreshadowing the rest of Fripp's career. All over the map, in here and out there, the only thing missing is a fifteen minute improv jam. I can only listen to this sporadically as it really is nearly incoherent with its blend of styles. Terre Roach is in fine form on a few tunes showing Fripp should use female singers with his heavy sound more often. Daryl Hall does his worst pre Whitney Houston imitation on the most foul thing on this disc. Of course, the instrumentation is virtuosic and stylish, in contrast to most pop/rock at the time. Fripp is certainly conscious of this, in fact the opening track pretty much wages war on commercialism.

It all adds up to more than the sum of its parts. A good record for those initiated with King Crimson. But Daryl Hall? Did he offer to sing for free?