Crafty Guitars

The CD changer in the car can be oddly temperamental regarding which CDs it deigns to play. It seems to hold a grudge against the mighty Bob having refused to play The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan a few weeks back and now Infidels. But today it mysteriously relented after a week of solid non-cooperation and allowed me to listen to The Robert Fripp String Quintet's The Bridge Between. I'm glad it did.

It's been quite a while, far too long, since I listened to anything in which Mr Fripp had been a guiding light and I sense I am about to enter a period in which his various projects, from the solo soundscapes to the full Crimson King, get plenty of air time. Today's CD featured various players who are associated with Guitar Craft and was a reminder of the many virtues of the work associated with that extraordinary, quite possibly visionary, approach to making music. The sheer brightness and cogency of sound they coax from their instruments, the percussive drive of the more extrovert pieces, the density yet clarity of texture - all seem to me to validate whatever it is they get up to in those Crafty sessions. Soundscapes here I come.

An observation: just abut anyone who came out of the whole progressive rock thing with any credibility was associated with either Fripp or Zappa in one way or another. And both these gentlemen at various times brought unusual amounts of vituperation upon themselves from some of the musicians around them. Was some kind of correlation involved?