Robert Fripp - A Blessing of Tears - 1995 Soundscapes - Vol.2 - Live in California (1995)

Original Release Date: August 18, 1995


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Beyond words - beyond thought, June 4, 2003
By spiral_mind (Pennsylvania)

Soundscapes. As you can imagine from the name, Robert Fripp's experiments in noise are more sound than music. Describing them is never an easy task - I can throw out phrases like "hazy clouds" and "ethereal waves" and "ambient noise" all day and not even come close to really describing what these works sound like. This is an impressive achievement from a technical standpoint alone; looping and layering levels of music on top of each other can get complex enough as it is, but these 'Scapes don't just rely on one sound-delayed loop - there are *four* separate playbacks being worked on at once, running at different intervals and for different lengths. And as with the other albums in this series, Blessing of Tears is a collection of pieces that were all spontaneously created live. It's an exercise in concentration and improvisation that few mortals are even capable of. Alternately, offers Robert, it's "the best way I know of to make a lot of noise with one guitar."

Blessing of Tears is not just noise, however, not the chaotic guitar fury of his work in King Crimson or even the Soundscaping white noise of the other two discs in the 1995 trilogy. This is the album where he got it all down perfectly. This is the one I could play every night for the rest of my life and never get tired of. Even though there's no conventional harmony (or rather, what harmony there is never stops shifting and changing), it never even approaches harshness or unlistenability. The guitar parts - they don't even sound like a guitar, more like several keyboards or a batch of filtered voices - ebb and flow in peaceful waves over and around each other in a mishmosh that would probably sound like complete chaos if they consisted of actual notes.. but since this consists of vague hazy tones overlapping each other, the result is something completely elusive, like a dream that vanishes as soon as you try to remember it. It's something impossible to really follow and yet also difficult to ignore, as you would with plain ambient music.

The theme seems to be centered around grief and sadness (as the title implies - after all, it was created as an elegy for Robert's mother), but I'd hate to limit this album to that one mood. It does make for excellent listening for a sad mood or a reflective time of loss, but to me it's suited just as well to peaceful nights and times of quiet contentment. No matter - ABoT is something soothing to the ears and stunningly beautiful, whatever the mood. It's indefinable, elusive.. and absolutely perfect.





Constant craving, May 18, 2000
By XS (Regensburg, Germany)


Although this is a very serious and measured album, I couldn't stop laughing when I read all the previous reviews. "A blessing.." clearly is the most beautiful and emotionally moving effort of Fripp's legendary "Soundscapes" series. Marked with the same stylistic integrity as previous releases, the music is characterized by violin-like, long-stretched soundwaves, originally created by guitar and then randomly sampled together. The most fascinating aspect about this guitar reinvention is the constantly shifting and turning nature of the music, so there's hardly any repetition. On the other hand, this album doesn't do much to develop the sound found on Fripp's last few albums, it it's not as enterprising as "The gates of paradise" or "Evening star". And over the course of a whole disc, the bright, humming noises are rather nerve-racking than relaxing. Since this is a concept album, it's pointless to pick winners, but the intro of "Returning II" is outstanding. It's like walking in the first morning light after an awfully cold winter night. Recommended anyway.






Of all of the Soundscapes, the most spiritually satisfying, December 17, 2003
By o dubhthaigh (north rustico, pei, canada) -


It's hard to convey to someone what a piece of music means to you, whether you are the writer, performer or audient. Something other always escapes. It is why we turn to music when confronting the ineffable.
I have turned to this disc often. Composed by Fripp in dedication to the passing of his mother, it is a deeply spiritual and profoundly emotional piece. When my wife's parents passed, this CD was a source of great comfort to her. As I have sought to pick up the tral where my own spirituality died off, I seem to sense its whereabouts in my soul as I listen to this.
The music herein will stay with you forever. Of all the brilliant pieces of music for which Robert Fripp has been responsible, this is the one for which we owe him deep and soulful gratitude. It is absolutely a blessing of tears…






TRACKS :

1. The Cathedral of Tears
2. First Light
3. Midnight Blue - Robert Fripp, Fripp, Robert
4. Reflection I
5. Second Light
6. A Blessing of Tears
7. Returning I
8. Returning II