LE TROMPE L'OIEL PARIS, FRANCE 1979

In between his first out of Crimson studio solo project "Exposure" and his second, Robert Fripp already had a very clear picture of where his music was heading. As it was already punctuated in the first project's "Water Music " songs. So in this pause between, he toured around exposing his peculiar "Frippertronics" which later will be named "Soundscapes" (which consist of simultaneous processed electric guitar "loops" along with a "live" electric guitar playing over them, for those who are not familiar with the terms).

Le Trompe l'Oiel Paris, France 1979 live performances ( there were 2) consisted of him playing in this well known (at the time) Paris restaurant. Therefore the title of this one hour long composition is aptly named "Music for Restaurants".

As good as it gets for those who indeed are familiar with Mr. Fripp's solo projects. This one hour composition, in fact is composed of many different fragments of "Frippertronics" lines,which are threaded so exquisitely that they could be referred as a single composition project. So, the future second and amazing studio project (God Save the Queen-UnderHeavyManners) was already cooking. BUT "that", we will find out later in time.

In this the record I am reviewing, the compositions were to call them somehow improvised or "unpublished". Meaning that all these tour dates privileged themselves of always sticking to the venues' "atmospheres" (of course without any kind musical compromises, I mean this is Fripp) so, each live session thrived on different "compositions" depending on each place they happened (record stores, restaurants, churches, clubs and so on).

This one, was an extraordinary day in the musical life of Mr. Fripp's live performances. There are some clues to the future studio project but this is a completely different effort. This miracolous achievement is due to his insistence of recording all his dates. Therefore we get the value of each individual performance (as a musical self-diary, which he also is very fond in keeping) . Adding up to that the recording quality is superb, and there are no annoying public nuisances, considering he always tries to record inwards more than fom the outwards.

***** 5 PA stars "Unearthed, , small wonder Masterpiece!!"