When I first came across it, I thought The Zero of the Signified was not just a great track title, but a fascinating phrase in itself. I had never heard of de Saussure, Barthes or semiology then, but when I did, a few years later, I felt drawn towards them.
I heard Fripp in a radio interview explaining why he'd borrowed the term "Under Heavy Manners" from the then Jamaican Prime Minister, Michael Manley, who used it to describe an emergency clampdown by the authorities in the face of escalating violence. But I didn't really understand the explanation.
I was captivated by the voice, its diction, accent, carefully chosen vocabulary and very measured confidence. The music sounded inaccessible. I held off from buying it, but the voice was always there. And remains so.
This marks, I believe, the first appearance of Fripp's gnomic manifestos in the sleeve notes of his albums. A sample:
Frippertronics is defined as that musical experience resulting at the interstice of Robert Fripp and a small, mobile and appropriate level of technology, vis. his guitar, Frippelboard and two Revoxes…
There are two categories of Frippertronics: pure and applied. Applied Frippertronics is where Frippertronics is used with other instruments as an alternative to traditional orchestration and arrangement, natural or synthesised. Pure Frippertronics is used alone and itself has two categories: ambient Frippertronics, in Brian Eno's sense of music as ignorable as it is listenable, and imperative Frippertronics where the music demands attention to validate its procession.…
Discotronics is defined as that musical experience resulting at the interstice of Frippertronics and disco…
The album is part of Fripp's Drive to 1981, alluded to, if not explained, here:
It was a prolific period, taking in solo albums, The League of Gentlemen, and on to the blossoming of Discipline.
Not to mention playing on others' albums.
Also on the inner sleeve, a credit for Fripp's hair stylist, the "famous Mary Lou Green". According to this source, "Fripp would sometimes set up his tape decks [in MLG's salon] and engage customers in 'Barbertronics'."
Sorry to say, in the late eighties I aspired to a haircut like that — though I was never able to emulate it successfully. I still can't work out what's going on in the fringe/front hairline area: it's like the hair just stops — see video above.
The Under Heavy Manners Discotronics side has precious little to do with disco, but points towards both The League of Gentlemen and the incarnation of King Crimson that followed with 18 months.
The God Save the Queen Frippertronics side points forward to the Soundscapes.
When Fripp's tape-loop set-up was all analogue, the music he made with it often had a slightly brittle feel to it. Now that he has complex digital loops, the sound he makes is smoother, more analogue.
Doesn't even sound like a guitar.
On his performance of Under Heavy Manners, David Byrne really gets to let his inner twitchy tourette rip.
Fripp wrote the lyrics to that one. He doesn't do that often.
It was hard to find in 1985, but even harder now, having never been released on CD.
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