3.5

Release data:

Fripp & Eno – Evening Star
CD, EG Records, 1975/2008

“Evening Star”, the second album by the duo Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, can nowadays be regarded a classic album in the genre of minimal drone ambient.

The tape looping system, already featured on their previous release “No Pussy Footing”, has been further improved, while Fripp’s guitar sounds have been further embedded in Eno’s sculptured textures.

The themes explored on the first four tracks are nature-inspired dwellings blending wind and water, of which the first three feature Eno synths and piano accompanied by Robert Fripp’s smooth guitar textures and treatments. The fourth piece, “Wind on Water”, is actually an excerpt of Brain Eno’s solo release “Discreet Music”, which came out after “Evening Star”.

The main course however is the 28-minute “An Index of Metals”, a massive and dense work of slowly evolving, layered drone textures. Both musicians expertly built a disturbing, almost creepy but also fascinating sonic epic into (what seems) nothingness.
I imagine these gradually changing, dissonant chord progressions also may irritate some listeners, but the real beauty lies deep within when absorbing its full hypnotizing content.

All in all, these are marvellously rendered industrial-edged ambient soundscapes to fully immerse in.
Recently, the album has been remastered and re-released.

You can see what reviews I have done of this artist on the Brian Eno artist page