Exposure (Robert Fripp album)

Infobox Album
Name = Exposure
Type = studio
Artist = Robert Fripp


Released = start date|1979|6
Recorded = start date|1977|1–end date|1979|1
Genre = Rock, progressive rock, ambient music, hard rock
Length = 45:28
Label = E.G.
Producer = Robert Fripp
Reviews =
* Allmusic Rating|4.5|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:ck9as33ra3rg link]
* Robert Christgau (B+) [http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?id=1161&name=Robert+Fripp link]
Last album = "Evening Star" (1975)
This album = "Exposure" (1979)
Next album = "God Save the Queen/Under Heavy Manners" (1981)

"Exposure" is a rock music solo album by guitarist Robert Fripp, best-known as the only constant member of the progressive rock band King Crimson. Released in 1979, it peaked at #79 on the "Billboard" Album Chart.

"Exposure" consists of compositions embracing hard rock, ambient music, ballads, and "musique concrète", and includes contributions from a variety of recording artists. A jarring work, alternately discordant and serene, "Exposure" mixes traditional song structure with found objects, lacerating vocals, and off-kilter guitar work-outs to present a unique sonic experience, a bracing encapsulation of urban angst, leavened with a wry sense of humor that is refreshingly at odds with the public perception of Fripp as being overly-serious.

Lyrics were mostly provided by Joanna Walton, a poetess and girlfriend of Fripp's, who in 1988 was a passenger killed in the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103.

Background

After terminating the first run of King Crimson in 1974, Fripp decamped in 1977 to the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City. New York was then a center of punk rock and what would come to be known as new wave, and Fripp dived in to the scene, playing and recording with Blondie and the Roche sisters, absorbing the sounds of the active downtown music scene. He envisioned a new approach, and incorporated elements of these NYC experiences into his current palette, including "Frippertronics," the tape loop techniques he had developed in tandem with Brian Eno.

Originally, Fripp envisioned "Exposure" as the third part of a simultaneous trilogy also comprising Daryl Hall's "Sacred Songs" and Peter Gabriel's second album aka "Scratch", both of which Fripp contributed to and produced. Hall's management and label resisted the project, fearing the music would damage Hall's commercial appeal, insisting as well that "Exposure" be equally credited to Hall, initially Fripp's main vocalist. Fripp instead used only two Hall vocals on his album, substituting Peter Hammill and Terre Roche in various places.

The trilogy did not work out quite as intended, although all three albums eventually appeared in the marketplace. The songs "Urban Landscape" and "I May Not Have Had Enough of Me But I've Had Enough of You" appear on the Hall album as well, the latter entitled "NYCNY" with different lyrics written by Hall. The Gabriel record also features a version of "Exposure." "Here Comes the Flood" had previously appeared with orchestral arrangement on Gabriel's first album, but Gabriel disliked the production, and created a far simpler rendition of the song for "Exposure", featuring his own vocals and piano, Fripp's guitar, and Brian Eno's synthesizer.

The album was remixed in 1983 with two of the deleted Hall vocals restored. In 2006, a 24-bit remaster of both the 1979 original and the remix, with bonus tracks (including both versions of "Disengage"), was issued on Fripp's Discipline Global Mobile label.

Track listings

All tracks composed by Robert Fripp except as noted.

1979 Original (Exposure, First Edition)

# "Preface" – 1:16
# "You Burn Me Up I'm a Cigarette" (Fripp, Daryl Hall) – 2:24
# "Breathless" – 4:43
# "Disengage" (Fripp, Peter Hammill, Joanna Walton) – 2:44 (Hammill vocal)
# "North Star" (Fripp, Hall, Walton) – 3:12
# "Chicago" (Fripp, Hall, Walton) – 2:18 (Hammill vocal)
# "NY3" (Fripp, Hall, Walton) – 2:18
# "Mary" (Fripp, Hall, Walton) – 2:09 (Roche vocal)
# "Exposure" (Fripp, Peter Gabriel) – 4:26
# "Hååden Two" – 1:58
# "Urban Landscape" – 2:35
# "I May Not Have Had Enough of Me But I've Had Enough of You" (Fripp, Walton) – 3:38
# "First Inaugural Address to the I.A.C.E. Sherborne House" (J. G. Bennett) – 0:07
# "Water Music I" (Fripp, Bennett) – 1:19
# "Here Comes the Flood" (Gabriel) – 3:56
# "Water Music II" – 3:55
# "Postscript" – 0:55"Track listing note:" On the original LP album release, side one was comprised of tracks 1-8; side two of tracks 9-17.

1985 Release (Exposure, Second Edition)

# "Preface" – 1:15
# "You Burn Me Up I'm a Cigarette" (Fripp, Hall) – 2:23
# "Breathless" – 4:45
# "Disengage" (Fripp, Hammill, Walton) – 2:46 (Hammill vocal)
# "North Star" (Fripp, Hall, Walton) – 3:06
# "Chicago" (Fripp, Hall, Walton) – 2:12
# "NY3" – 2:24 (Andrews organ)
# "Mary" (Fripp, Hall, Walton) – 2:08 (Hall vocal)
# "Exposure" (Fripp, Gabriel) – 4:26
# "Hååden Two" – 2:53
# "Urban Landscape" – 2:34
# "I May Not Have Had Enough of Me But I've Had Enough of You" (Fripp, Walton) – 3:34
# "First Inaugural Address to the I.A.C.E. Sherborne House" (Bennett) – 0:04
# "Water Music I" (Fripp, Bennett) – 1:27
# "Here Comes the Flood" (Gabriel) – 4:07
# "Water Music II" – 4:28
# "Postscript" – 0:37

2006 Bonus Disc (Exposure, Third Edition)

# "Preface" – 1:16
# "You Burn Me Up I'm a Cigarette" (Fripp, Hall) – 2:24
# "Breathless" – 4:43
# "Disengage II" (Fripp, Hall, Walton) – 2:44 (Hall vocal)
# "North Star" (Fripp, Hall, Walton) – 3:12
# "Chicago" (Fripp, Hall, Walton) – 2:18
# "New York, New York, New York" (Fripp, Hall, Walton) – 2:18 (Hall vocal)
# "Mary" (Fripp, Hall, Walton) – 2:09 (Roche vocal)
# "Exposure" (Fripp, Gabriel) – 4:26
# "Hååden Two" – 1:58
# "Urban Landscape" – 2:35
# "I May Not Have Had Enough of Me But I've Had Enough of You" (Fripp, Walton) – 3:38
# "First Inaugural Address to the I.A.C.E. Sherborne House" (Bennett) – 0:07
# "Water Music I" (Fripp, Bennett) – 1:19
# "Here Comes the Flood" (Gabriel) – 3:56
# "Water Music II" – 3:55
# "Postscript" – 0:55

Bonus tracks (alternate takes)

#

"Exposure" (Fripp, Gabriel) – 4:28 (Hall vocal; previously unreleased alternate take)
# "Mary" (Fripp, Hall, Walton) – 2:07 (Hall vocal; previously unreleased alternate take)
# "Disengage" (Fripp, Hammill, Walton) – 2:50 (Hammill vocal; same version as used in 1985 Release)
# "Chicago" (Fripp, Hall, Walton) – 2:03 (Hammill and Roche vocals; same version as used in 1985 Release)
# "NY3" – 2:16 (Andrews organ; same version as used in 1985 Release)

Personnel

* Robert Fripp - guitar on 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12, Frippertronics on 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 14 15 16, voice on 9
* Daryl Hall - vocals on 1 2 4 (1985 version), 5 6 (1985 version), piano on 2
* Terre Roche - vocals on 8 9 12
* Peter Hammill - vocals on 4 (1979 version), 6 (1979 version), 12
* Peter Gabriel - voice on 1, vocals on 15, piano on 15
* Tony Levin - bass on 2 4 5 6 7 9 10 12
* Jerry Marotta - drums on 2 3 6 9 10
* Narada Michael Walden - drums on 3 7 12
* Phil Collins - drums on 4 5
* Brian Eno - synthesizer on 5 15, voice on 1 9 17
* Barry Andrews - organ on 4 7 12
* Sid McGinnis - rhythm guitar on 9, pedal steel guitar on 5

Additional personnel

* Ed Sprigg - engineer
* Steve Short - engineer
* Chris Stein - design, photography
* Amos Poe - VTR imagery
* Mary Lou Green - hair
* Mrs. Edith Fripp - voice on 4
* Mrs. Evelyn Harris - voice
* J.G. Bennett - voice on 13
* Shivapuri Baba - voice
* Simon Heyworth - digital remastering

External links

* [http://www.elephant-talk.com/exposure/expoweb1.htm Claas Kazzer's Exposure Pages] at Elephant Talk
* [http://home.cogeco.ca/~frippertronics/Fripp-Rarities.htm Detailed analysis of an early white label test pressing of Exposure from 1978 (originally titled “The Last of the Great New York Heartthrobs”)] - contains track by track musician credits
* [http://remasterhell.blogspot.com/2006/06/robert-fripp-exposure-2-disc-remaster.html Remaster Hell] - blog post with details about the 2006 remaster of the album