Neuguitars 2025 #8 Andy Summers and Robert Fripp Are Back with a New CD Box Set

January 30, 2025. The DGM Live website features this news:
"‘The Complete Recordings 1981-1984’ by Andy Summers and Robert Fripp on 3CD/1Blu-ray, alongside a new 2024 David Singleton mix of ‘I Advance Masked’ on 200-gram vinyl, will be released on March 28th, 2025."
https://www.dgmlive.com/news/andy-summers-and-robert-fripp

At the same time, this wonderful preview appears on YouTube: Skyline.

I can't contain my excitement. This might just be the purchase of 2025! Three CDs plus a Blu-ray disc. The dynamic duo has finally opened the vaults of their 1980s collaborations and assembled the complete work that had been long awaited.

As we wait for March 28, 2025, perhaps it’s worth revisiting some history behind these recordings.

It's 1982. The success of The Police has solidified and taken shape after four stunning and increasingly significant albums. Their latest, Ghost in the Machine (1981), showcases them in top form. Synchronicity, their milestone, their apex, the ultimate zenith that will forever cement them in the pantheon of rock legends, is on the horizon. The breakup, both a strategic move driven by the classic pop-star burnout and Sting’s desire for a solo career, is also imminent. And Summers? He’s at his peak, bursting with ideas, insights, and fresh perspectives.

Meanwhile, King Crimson is also at its height. They are in their third incarnation, following the triumphant Discipline (1981), which propelled them into a new evolutionary leap. Fripp, too, is in a creative whirlwind. Just look at the staggering sequence of his solo works: Exposure (1979), God Save The Queen / Under Heavy Manners (1980), Let The Power Fall (1981).

The two have known and respected each other for years. Summers began his professional career playing jazz guitar in clubs around his hometown of Bournemouth. The Majestic Hotel in Bournemouth was his last local gig, after he left for London, his spot was taken by none other than Robert Fripp, four years his junior.

In 1982, they decided to collaborate on something innovative and personal. The result? I Advance Masked, a duo album built on extensive use of synth guitars, loops, and cavernous reverbs.

"I’m expanding, I’m in an expansive state," Summers said in an interview for Walking the Police Beat by Mark Mehler (Record 10.94 VOL3 NO.12). "I’m going out and letting things grow, the balloon is filling up. I hope this is metaphorical enough for you. I’m trying myself out in situations to see how comfortable I feel, how good or bad I am."

https://andysummers.com/music/collaborations/i-advance-masked-with-robert-fripp/

For Summers, the album was perhaps a reaction to the stifling presence of The Police—or maybe just the natural response of a creative mind feeling constrained by a path he subconsciously already saw as predetermined.

(During this same period, Summers also published Throb, a book of photographic essays, explored cinema by studying acting for three years, and immersed himself in travel, literature, contemporary painting, and fine furniture.)

For Fripp, it was possibly an opportunity to play (and record) with an old friend while searching for new ideas and directions.

Their follow-up, Bewitched, was less experimental, shifting towards a more conventional format with the addition of Chris Childs and Sara Lee on bass and Paul Beavis on drums. However, it still remained outside the mainstream, featuring a surreal electro-post-Miami Vice sound. Even the videos accompanying the albums were intriguing, entertaining, and surreal, reflecting the personalities of the two guitarists, Summers, playful and extroverted, and Fripp, fearless in his noble British imperturbability.

But most importantly, the sound made all the difference. Free from their respective bands, Summers and Fripp unleashed their personal obsessions, creating a cold fusion of two distinct and contrasting sonic identities: The Police and King Crimson.

Both guitarists built upon their shared jazz background and mutual passion for technology, yielding extraordinary results. Listening to these albums today, the guitar synth tones immediately place them in the cultural frame of the early '80s, yet their freshness, both in sound and musical concepts, remains strikingly relevant, casting a long shadow over much of today’s experimental music.

There’s another noteworthy aspect. These two albums were released under A&M Records, the same label that had The Police under contract. At the time, A&M was at its financial peak, only to be sold to PolyGram in 1989, and later absorbed by Universal Music Group in 1999. These were clearly experimental records, produced by a major label primarily focused on pop music—one that likely saw little financial return from these releases. In his autobiography, Summers mischievously claims he leveraged The Police’s contractual power to persuade his label to greenlight these projects. Whether true or not, such a scenario seems utterly unthinkable today.

In the early '80s, a pop-rock artist still had the possibility of launching a parallel career—an alternative path alongside their successful band, allowing them to explore personal and unconventional musical directions. Their label, albeit reluctantly and certainly without offering massive budgets, would approve. This meant:

1. The financial returns from these alternative productions were at least sufficient to cover costs.

2. Musicians had stronger contractual power.

3. There was an audience—still not just a niche—who appreciated, purchased, and listened to these aesthetic diversions.

A situation unimaginable today.

Now, these two "old guys" are back, completing the archival work they started. The Complete Recordings 1981-1984 CD box set is available for pre-order on Burning Shed for about 40 pounds—how could anyone resist?

https://burningshed.com/store/panegyric/andy-summers_robert-fripp_the-complete-recordings_boxset