Customer Reviews

The Equatorial Stars

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In many ways, this album is everything one would have expected-- somehow the natural successor to "No Pussyfooting" and "Evening Star". In other ways, its nothing like I would have expected-- the usual stamps of Fripp and Eno's recent work seems to be missing.

Its really quite hard to largely identify the identity of the musician generating the sound on much of this material, there's obvious stuff (we'll come to that in a minute), but as a rule, the backgrounds could be either of them. Sonically, it moves through a number of backdrops, with delicate, percussive, synthish loops dominating the early part of the record ("Meissa", "Lyra", "Tarazed"), wheras the middle of the record feels more like their old collaborations updated, the sort of modern Fripp soundscapes being more apparent ("Lupus", "Ankaa"). The remainder of the album features on track that is totally unexpected, the downright funky "Altair", with its train shuffling rhythms, drum loops, and funky guitar (in ways similar to material from the Eno/Schwaum "Drawn from Life" record), and the closer, "Terebellum", is an aggressive, haunting, and almost angry sounding piece almost reminiscent of "Radiophonics" or the other more aggressive soundscapes.

Over this material, Fripp largely solos using a variant of his legendary fuzz tone-- its a bit mellower, and rounder though, similar to his leads on "Starless" and "The Power to Believe Part II" but in a more hushed feel.

So that tells not much, the real question is, what's it like? Largely an ambient affair, the collaboration is what you'd expect-- there's no real incindiery moments here-- don't look for a "Baby's On Fire", but it is comparable to their previous collaborations in quality, and it certainly sounds nothing like Crimson. Some of it is full of delicate beauty ("Lyra"), some of its just a blast ("Altair"), some of its actually quite hard to listen to at all ("Terebellum").

For fans of ambient music, especially the work of these two gentelemen, this one will be quite rewarding. It falls short somehow of being a masterpiece, but it is really a great record. Recommended.

Thirty years after their two groundbreaking ambient albums, No Pussyfooting and Evening Star, Fripp and Eno recorded this long-awaited sequel. As one can guess from the CD and track titles, the soundscapes this time around are meant to evoke outer-space and alien lands. But don't mistake this for space-rock, or any kind of rock for that matter. Fripp's own soundscapes of late have tended to be harsh and dissonant, but here he and Eno return to the archetypal earlier sound with Fripp's free-form, legato guitar lines stretching out over Eno's deep, mysterious atmospheres.

Any track-by-track commentary on this type of recording would be redundant, so suffice it to say that fans of the duo's 70's collaborations will find The Equatorial Stars to be a perfect companion to No Pussyfooting and Evening Star. Superior ambient music by two of the masters of the genre.

Whoosh! It's been, wha...30 years since the wonderful two LP's "No Pussyfooting" and "Evening Star" by this pathbreaking duo of Fripp and Eno. Since then we have long hoped for more...more...from these two incredible genii of ambient-electronic music. Well, in 1994 Caroline released "The Essential Fripp And Eno" which had both LP's except for some reason they left out Side 2 of "Evening Star", "An Index Of Metals", but included 4 new tracks "Healthy Colours". Nice stuff, but not what we'd've expected. Anyhoo...here's a wonderful new selection of seven mid-size (5-9 minute) tracks of very atmospheric guitar-synthesizer, sampled synth, who-knows-what-studio-wizardry. Fripp proves to be still a very formidable guitarist, playing meltingly beautiful solos over Eno's very advanced and gorgeous electronic backings. Two tracks have notably catchy backbeats, but the others are mostly airy-ambient cloud-musics of beautiful depth and range. Let us hope that these two top-notch brilliant British musicians don't wait another 30 years to add another chapter to their output!

King Crimson founder Robert Fripp and Ambient music pioneer Brian Eno have joined forces for the first time in over 26 years with their third and latest collaboration "The Equatorial Stars".
Featuring seven lengthy soundscapes, "The Equatorial Stars" is chock-full of the same atmospheric air as the duo's pioneering efforts "No Pussyfooting" and "Evening Star". Each of the album's seven pieces are similar stylistically being completely void of any central rhythm. The sole acception being track 6 "Altair" which features a rhythm loop that leans on the edge of subtle funk. Because of the similarities between each of the pieces, "The Equatorial Stars" works well as both a lengthy suite and seven individual pieces of music. Fripp's sustained guitar lines are at the forefront recalling his classic style of old without the use of much Midi-processing (a tool of Fripp's recent Soundscaping technique). Eno's minimalist keyboard backgrounds hang motionless creating open spaciness within the music. The styles of both musicians complement each other effortlessly and the end result is another winning combination.
After so many years, it is an absolute blessing the have Fripp and Eno together again with an album of new material. This newest CD compliments their first two albums effortlessly and together, they form a classic trilogy.
Highly Recommended!!

As someone mentioned, after many listenings, you can get quite a bit out of this beautiful digi pack cd.

Also as someone mentioned, much ambient / atmospheric music has come out in the last 35 years, but these two maestros hit the note pretty well on this one. If I am not wrong, Evening star ( 1975 ) was the last fripp & eno album col.

Fripp has been very busy with his music proyects, as well as B. eno.

I try and see the sense of calling it, Equatorial stars. The artistic direction has a cool map of stars covering most of the record.

On really hectic days - Im a business manager - I get home, and when I have time I can listen to something real good, and hopefully be ' cured ' = )

I tried it no too long ago with this album, and it worked. Beautiful and biorythmic ambience ( like Eno does always ) with help from none other than a great like R Fripp.

I think this should be in any serious music listeners library ( however big or small ); and should be observed as something very well done by giants in the genre.

Cheers Robert Fripp and Brian Eno. Thanks for something that many of us music fans would dub as ' just exactly perfect '

This is an excellent collaboration between Eno and Fripp. While not as revolutionary as No Pussyfooting, it is an excellent companion piece to Evening Star. The two even have a similar "theme".

It is very nice to see Fripp and Eno work together again, even for this one album.

If you are into this sort of ambient/drone music, I also suggest anything by Stars of the Lid- a more recent group who can pull off this music as good as Fripp and Eno.

This is Eno's best work ever and the the most interesting work we have heard from Fripp in many years. The combined talents of Fripp and Eno easily outdo any solo work either have done up to the present. Where have these guys been all this time!!This is an updated, reconsidered,teched-out Fripp and Eno for the new millenium and beyond! (Think of all the stunning world music,rock and avant garde that has passed under the bridge since their last album together!) Best of the 'Three' and a masterwork of the genre! Gentlemen,please,....Encore!!

Though it starts with what sounds like cows lowing beneath a sheet of midnight stars, Robert Fripp and Brian Eno's The Equatorial Stars - their first collaboration in 30 years - doesn't stay on planet Earth for long. Fripp's snakelike guitar lines loop through Eno's ambient landscapes with aimless grandeur, beautifully limning the constellations considered by title: "Tarazed", "Ankaa", etc. All seven tracks are of equal sonic value. The most propulsive, though, is "Altair", where Fripp's guitar meets the drummers from Hassell/Eno's Fourth World, Vol. 1, for a scenic glide through the night sky.

doesn't even come close to the heights set by no pussyfooting and evening star. at best, wispy ambient music for video games or sci-fi tv shows.

Eno - Talking Heads - U2. Composer, producer and 'reluctant' musician. Collaboration with Fripp dates to the early 1970s. Although there have been interesting or dismissive reviews (refer: Stylus, ground and sky, pitchfork) and the suggestion that Eno isn't enthused with digital technology as a medium of expression, I believe this album could represent a true beginning for the pair or perhaps their main sequence; a hard-won reconciliation in an intellectual and artisically mature creation for these world encompassing souls - equatorial stars - themselves. I say this because I have little affection for their early work, with the exception of Eno's masterpiece APOLLO soundtrack (1983). I feel pure electro or electro/acoustic music did not rise from the primordial sludge until Jean Michel Jarre gave it wings in 1976 or Tomita (1974). With The Equatorial Stars one can speculate if the pair have based elements of these compositions on the astrophysical properties of the stellar bodies so named. Only five of the seven titles refer to individual stars, two are constellations, therefore the album title is thematic - not literal, and plural not singular. This leads to the idea of the binary and more importantly a reference to the relationship between Eno and Fripp, as artists and friends. Track 1 - Meissa. A binary system. The companion is fainter. The composition implies a disorder of sorts in the system; a happy one...if you get the drift - off axis - weaving, wavering. Not a 'tea-toter' evidently, Lambda Orionis (Meissa, in the Arabic)...hic! Track 2 - Lyra. Constellation populated with binaries or multiples. Feathering, with an immaculate cresendo that defies description. Track 3 - Tarazed. Star. Gamma Aquilae. Constellation of Aquilla, 'A terse plaintive melody played recurrently by Fripp against the humongous space of Eno'. Track 4 - Lupus. Constellation. Many binaries -a carnival. Track 5. Ankaa. Alpha Phoenicis. (Whose entry in Whikipedia reads like a police record...). Ankaa has a small companion (...no matching description). Ankaa is, however, an 'old smoker' - heavy, leaden and due to die. Track 6 - Altair. Star. Constellation of Aquila, 'a funky guitar rhythm that chops along'. Altair does 'chop along'. Young, fast and oblate it completes a full rotation within ten hours - (regardless, it is one of the few stars for which a direct image of the surface has been obtained). Track 7 - Terebellum. Star (Omega). Constellation in Sagittarius. Part of a quadrilateral of stars, not bound, but not too dissimilar to our Sun. The core of the Galaxy is behind this region. Back to Earth. Why do I rate this work so high, despite what could be seen as faults? I'm an amateur 'armchair' astronomer and I believe with the lights off - or our local star beaming through your window (browsing through a book like COSMOS by Loralee Nolletti and Michael Soluri), The Equatorial Stars has accomplished what only the best of this form can - taken your mind there.
Andrew Mackenna, Christchurch, NZ 5/2011