Robert Fripp - (2005) Love Cannot Bear

Robert Fripp -(2005) Love Cannot Bear

This is the eight composition (and performance, since the material also relates to a concert held somewhere and an interpretation befitted somehow) from the fully obvious grand style of "soundscapes" and 'guitar sound art' Robert Fripp has perfected ever since the 90s - it sure feels, however, not as the eight official album, but as one of dozen such full expressions. And that feeling is not far from the truth because, ever since taking on such a wild, uncharacteristic and pretentious sound & harmony phasing, Robert Fripp rarely switched it with something of a different rock, prog and music kind. There is, in fact, an incredible list of soundscape concerts Fripp made, especially after 2000, reflecting a noble and a consistent embrace. Most of those recordings count as EPs or simple facets, but the heavy importance of this ambient rock is nauseating. Anyway, a lot of music from this powerful kind of music gets artistic and surprising characters, even if monotony confines no specific eclecticism. Love Cannot Bear itself is a contrast of essential and forgettable compositions, atmospheres and abstract extrusions.

Love Cannot Bear focuses on an entire convolution of colors, on basic or drifting nuances or on distorted impressions. Under such a pathos, each piece could actually mean a different reflection, even when it's made of the same linguine technique, plus of the same (or close to similar) musical vibrations. Acceptance-Affirming can be the color of indecisiveness, the music is strong but the ambiance is tough and minor. The opening of the album is made of basic stripes and succinct swings of music volume, in a basically tranced state of motion and creation. The soft intro turns out to be indecisive and phlegmatic, because, as it nine minutes piece evolves, graduated, the sound shape transforms in a pale but mirific orchid of insignificant, but very impressive harmonies. Affirmation: IMAC is the color of warmth, as there is a melodic fiber in the entire elliptic and circling composition. On My Mother's Birthday has the color of diluted romance, since, for sure, it is a sad piece Fripp dedicates to his loss. Musically (let's keep it realistic), the ambiance has a glacial ponder, on which a independent layer of piano glassy notes disturbs the short calmness. Affirmation-New York is the color of complexity, the piece is the most epic composition of the concert (and the album), so it stops time on many occasions, having stunning modalities, grave tones combined with high pinches, a relaxed but not moody harmony, plus some strange shirks of sound as a split of ambiance. Midnight Blue is the color of liquor and daze. Under more various effects, the piece has a rough melancholy combined with some artificial snippets of guitar notes. Sometimes the harmony loses itself in an emotional tension. Easter Sunday is the color of blossom, as the sound is sharp and very open, plus pretty exciting and reflecting. The beginning is marked by some surprising jazzy guitar clicks. Love Cannot Bear is the color of intensity, despite that the main harmony is one drifting up an ocean on sounds. The expression is also differentiated by some voice samples (Crimson fans will know the effect from Belew's own ones, within crimson albums from the 90s or the soft 00s). Requiem-Affirming is finally the color of fear, since the feeling is not only sad, but also treacherous. The harmonies, still well-shaped after the entire concert, please a very dramatic combination of dark spacey sounds and subtle marauding emotions.

Under the same essential impressive order, this album is also a formidable spectacle of complex harmony and decreptive humid reflections, forms of experimental rock, emotional ambiance, powerful electronic sustainment or a couple of artistic independent shapes and clusters being fully explored. Love Cannot Bear is another album putting Fripp in the center of the reverberations and the timbers, as an artist who plays the blind essence of music and the profound surround of psych-flowery sound visages.

Good and impressive album, as I hope I've described from the above. One of the strong and even contemporary-spotted soundscape albums Robert Fripp masters and performs already on account of musical mastering and unique trademarks. Love Cannot Bear, in contrast with a couple others, will express more than it is enough.

Live, released in 2005

Track Listings:
1 Acceptance - Affirming (9:31)
2 Affirmation: Imac (7:11)
3 On My Mother's Birthday (4:05)
4 Affirmation: New York (13:35)
5 Midnight Blue (6:08)
6 Easter Sunday (5:25)
7 Love Cannot Bear (8:46)
8 Requiem - Affirming (9:49)

Line-up/Musicians:
Robert Fripp acoustic & electric guitar, soundscapes