Evening Star (Fripp & Eno album)

Evening Star
Studio album by
Fripp & Eno
ReleasedDecember 1975
Recorded1974–1975
Genre
Length47:43
LabelIsland
ProducerBrian Eno & Robert Fripp
Fripp & Eno chronology
(No Pussyfooting)
(1973) 		Evening Star
(1975) 		The Equatorial Stars
(2004)
Robert Fripp chronology
(No Pussyfooting)
(1973) 		Evening Star
(1975) 		Exposure
(1979)
Brian Eno chronology
Another Green World
(1975) 		Evening Star
(1975) 		Discreet Music
(1975)

Evening Star is the second studio album by British musicians Robert Fripp and Brian Eno. It was recorded from 1974 to 1975 and released in December 1975 by Island Records.

Background and recording

Evening Star and the preceding seven-show European tour by Fripp and Eno marked Fripp's first musical output after King Crimson disbanded for the first time, and his last before temporarily retiring from music to study at John G. Bennett's International Academy for Continuous Education.

Content

AllMusic described Evening Star as "a less harsh, more varied affair [than (No Pussyfooting)], closer to Eno's then-developing idea of ambient music than what had come before".[1] The first three tracks consist of Frippertronics accented with effects, synthesizer and piano by Eno. Track four, "Wind on Wind", is a remix of a short excerpt from Eno's Discreet Music, released a week after Evening Star. Eno had originally intended for Fripp to use the material which became Discreet Music as a backing tape to play over in improvised live performances.

The second side of the album consists entirely of a twenty-eight-minute piece of Frippertronics-based drone music titled "An Index of Metals", in which distortion increases as the track progresses.

The album's cover is a painting by Peter Schmidt.

Release

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
Christgau's Record GuideB+[2]
Pitchfork8.6/10[3]
Record Collector[4]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[5]
Spin Alternative Record Guide8/10[6]
Tom Hull – on the WebB+[7]

Evening Star was released in December 1975 by Island Records. It was Fripp's only album to be released during his brief retirement.

Legacy

Tracks from Evening Star were used in the radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Primary Phase. "Wind on Water" and "Wind on Wind" were included on the soundtrack to the 1983 film Breathless.

Track listing

All tracks written by Brian Eno and Robert Fripp, except "Wind on Wind" by Eno.

Side A
  1. "Wind on Water" – 5:30
  2. "Evening Star" – 7:48
  3. "Evensong" – 2:53
  4. "Wind on Wind" – 2:56
Side B
  1. "An Index of Metals" – 28:36

Personnel

References

  1. ^ a b Mills, Ted. "Evening Star – Fripp & Eno / Robert Fripp / Brian Eno". AllMusic. Retrieved 6 July 2016.
  2. ^ Christgau 1981.
  3. ^ Howe, Brian (9 January 2009). "Fripp & Eno: No Pussyfooting / Evening Star". Pitchfork. Retrieved 6 July 2016.
  4. ^ "Fripp & Eno: Evening Star". Record Collector. p. 89. [A]n essential album for any modern record collection...
  5. ^ Considine 1992, p. 266.
  6. ^ Powers 1995, p. 129.
  7. ^ Hull, Tom (26 November 2023). "Grade List: Robert Fripp". Tom Hull – on the Web. Retrieved 26 November 2023.

Works cited