ROBERT FRIPP & JEFFREY FAYMAN: A TEMPLE IN THE CLOUDS

On this album the hypnotic guitar looping of Robert Fripp are enriched with composer Jeffrey Fayman's electronic layers, creating rich textured and minimalist divine ambient music. I have gained feeling that the record symbolizes ascension in four levels, a theme that could be interpreted in many different subjective ways.

First the travel begins from the "The Pillars of Hercules". These particles swim in shimmering celestial sea of sounds, oscillating relentlessly on simple solemn melodic harmony. The soundscaped guitar progressions blend beautifully to more natural sounding tonal elements, and the stagnant scenery easily removes the capability to sense time correctly. This sequence occupies the first fifteen minutes, and eventually evades to the sea, leaving the ocean rolling in its wake far below. Climbing altitude along the pillars a scenery of "The Sky Below" is reached. This four minutes long piece resides between the two largest movements of this record, and it is a cinematic calm phase, soothing the voyage with its new age flavored leanings. From this vision the traveler reaches "A Temple in The Clouds", a half hour long flight in solemn corridor, where both low-pitched vast echoes and higher toned rapid arpeggios unite within the caresses of eternal winds. The one-key based mantra swirls with relentless ferocity, offering sight to presence of abstract divine truth, a larger than life codex privileged for the pilgrims to behold. After enlightenment, the voyage continues above, allowing to see "The Stars Below". This three minute lasting coda holds very romantic characteristics of beautifulness, synthesizing the yearning weeps familiar from "Blessing of Tears" album and movie soundtrack oriented symphonic orchestrations.

I liked this album when I heard it during the time of its release, but later my own psyche had grown more open to the passive straits of stagnant aural impressions. Also some sentimental and spiritual appetites in the field of music have strengthened inside me, and thus this record has been cleaned from the dust and grown a very dear sacred artifact for my nocturnal meditative listening moments.