FFWD or Robert Fripp meets The Orb uptown. WAY UPTOWN!

This will most likely be my final Fripp feature for the foreseeable future, only because I don't have a lot of Fripp stuff to share with everyone. This one is very cool though I don't have much information to share with you other than the basics.

First off, FFWD is a convenient acronym for the group's contributors, namely Robert Fripp with guitar and treatments, Thomas Fehlmann with electronics, Kris Weston, better known to the world as Thrash, also credited with electronics, and finally D.A.R. Paterson with ambient treatments. That's how the CD credits the individual talents at work, and everyone but Fripp was a member of The Orb around the time of this project. With that said, one would probably assume that FFWD would sound like The Orb with Fripp on guitar, but that's not quite accurate. It's actually rather out there and very peaceful while still occasionally grabbing the opportunity to be naughty with the sounds of clocks being destroyed or funny vocal samples drifting in and out. It certainly wouldn't disappoint fans of The Orb, although Fripp fans might be confused what to expect, but if you go into it with minimal preconceived notions then you'd probably be quite taken with it. Listen to this with headphones on and you'll be drifting through space, enjoying whatever distractions float past. I suppose that would make this good drug music, but the only thing I use is caffeine and still I think it's wonderful.

FFWD's self-titled album, issued in 1994, appears to be out of print so I am featuring it here, but the other part of this post is their so-called demo tape, Orbert. Fripp and The Orb supposedly met over a few days and recorded everything here, with the first example of their fruits of collaboration being Orbert, a fifty-minute-plus track that features elements of some tracks from the album but is very much it's own thing. Work on the sessions continued and mixing occurred in the summer of 1993, leading to the self-titled album being released in 1994. Orbert remains unreleased though, with it purportedly having been leaked by Thrash or from a hard drive of his that was "compromised". Whatever the case, Orbert seems to be two long tracks that are shared as one, so I didn't separate them.

I don't want to go into too much detail regarding the sound of FFWD, other than to say if you love the ambient work of The Orb you'll be pleased, and if you're open to experimentation and don't expect guitar solos and happen to be a Fripp fan, you too should be satisfied. And let me note, as some may wonder afterward, Hasson Ramsey is responsible for the wonderful percussion on Collossus. Enjoy!


FFWD - FFWD

01 Hidden
02 Lucky Saddle
03 Drone
04 Hempire
05 Collossus
06 What Time Is Clock
07 Can Of Bliss
08 Elevenses
09 Meteor Storm
10 Buckwheat & Grits
11 Klangtest
12 Suess Wie Eine Nuss


FFWD - Orbert