The Fright Watch is improvised experimental rock music with drum loops by Bill Bruford, influenced by the improv jams of King Crimson during their 1972-1974 period and attempting to use similar sounds. You can hear samples from this CD, including a medley of all the songs on this album, by doing a search for "The Fright Watch" on either YouTube or Reverb Nation.
Track Listing:
1. Briefly Aloft (Peters)
2. Flight To Extinction (Bruford, Hill, Peters)
3. Dark Side of the Sun (Hill, Peters, Pompilii)
4. A Knife All Blade (Bruford, Hill, Peters)
5. Order Arises From Chaos (Bruford, Hill, Peters)
6. Drunken Master (Peters, Stone)
7. Sky Burial (Hill, Montgomery, Peters, Stone)
8. 1,000 Eyes (Hill, Montgomery, Peters, Stone)
9. Monster in the Mirror (Peters, Pompilii)
10. Harmless and Tightly Strapped (Peters, Pompilii)
11. Duo (Elliott, Peters)
12. Moments of Non-Transcendence, Part One (Bruford, Hill, Peters)
13. Moments of Non-Transcendence, Part Two (Bruford, Hill, Peters)
Personnel:
William Bruford: Drum Loops (2, 4, 5, 12, 13)
Paul Elliott: Keyboard (11)
Jim Hill: Guitar (2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13)
Scott Montgomery: Bass (7, 8)
William Pompilii: Percussives (3, 9, 10)
Pete Stone: Percussives (6, 7, 8)
Steve Peters: All other instruments, devices, loop editing, art, design, and photography
Dedicated to the memory of John Wetton, Edward Peters, and Luis Moisset de Espanes.
Royalty-free viola samples courtesy the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Drum loops licensed from Bill Bruford and Keyfax Software.
The 1972-74 version of King Crimson has always been my favorite iteration of that band. Over the years, I'd heard that instrumentals such as "We'll Let You Know", "Trio", and "Providence" were live improvisations with the audience sounds removed. I found it difficult to believe they were made up on the spot---they HAD to be rehearsed beforehand. They just seemed well-thought out and structured---barring the use of some kind of telepathy, such ad-libbing had to be impossible.
In the 2010s, I became interested in Crimson's live recordings from that period. I heard the songs mentioned above with the audience sounds included, and some of them extended past the song length that I was familiar with. But the rabbit hole went FAR deeper than I'd ever imagine. The band had created MANY improvisational pieces, and I began to collect them. I soon had gathered enough songs to make an "album". It wasn't long before I had enough to make another. And another. And ANOTHER! I am STILL occasionally digging up improvs that I've never heard before.
Around 2012 I hit on the idea of creating new original music in the style of those improvs. I had come across some mellotron samples that would be crucial in recreating that sound. My drummer friend Bill had put away his sticks because he was too busy to play anymore, but he had turned me on a few years before to a CD collection of Bill Bruford drum loops, which was perfect---I'm not much of a drummer, plus, Bruford was the actual drummer on those King Crimson improvs I wanted to emulate! Another key event was that my dear uncle Edward Peters had passed away and left me some money, which I used to pay off my debt and had some left over which I used to buy an ebony (had to be black, just like Robert Fripp's) Les Paul guitar (an Epiphone---I still couldn't quite afford a real one).
I recorded three songs to satisfy my curiosity that I could actually pull off this improv thing. I was reasonably satisfied, but I put the project on the shelf for some reason, maybe because I wanted to focus on my Comicverse comic, which was and is steaming along quite nicely.
Then a couple of things happened in 2017 to re-spark my passion for the project. John Wetton, the very bassist that inspired this project, passed away, along with a number of other well-respected musicians in recent years. As with other fans, it got me thinking about mortality and seizing the day while there's still time, about not leaving ideas unfinished. Meanwhile, another dear uncle, Luis Moisset de Espanes, had given me a birthday gift which allowed me to buy a new multi-track recorder, which I sorely needed---my old one was very out of date and no longer working properly.
I had been hanging out with my friend Paul's band, the Proj, and going to their practices and jamming with them. I invited their lead guitarist, Jim, over to my house to work on some improvs. I was beyond pleased with what we came up with. After just a few instructions, Jim began making sounds on the guitar that sounded a lot like Robert Fripp. The weirdest part was that Jim wasn't familiar with Fripp or King Crimson at all (he kept mixing them up with King Diamond)! What was great was that, even though he was making the kind of sounds I wanted, he brought his own original style to the table as well. The songs we began making were not done the way Crimson did theirs---four or five musicians jamming together live---it would've been too difficult to get so many people together. Usually, Jim and I would jam together over a track of Bill Bruford drum loops that I had edited together in an improvised way. Then I would add a final improvised track later on. I've got to say Jim was really my hero on this album; he played on more tracks than anyone else (other than me), and he brought a lot of gusto to everything he played.
I soon got other musicians involved. Paul and I recorded a duet that is one of the most hauntingly beautiful things I've ever recorded. I recorded a number of songs with Paul and his friend Scott, most of which I have to save for the next Fright Watch album which I'll release if this one does well. Sometimes in jamming with Jim or Paul and Scott I would run out of pre-assembled Bill Bruford drum loops to play over, so we would just play together without a drum track. I brought in my friends Bill and Pete to play drums over those, using either an electronic drum pad or samples of Bill Bruford's drum kit (using that same CD of Bruford's loops) to get that authentic sound.
I was so happy with the way things were going that I wanted to share the music with my uncle Luis, who had made the project possible. I didn't think he'd care much for the distorted guitar stuff, but I thought he might like the duet with Paul---two mellotron samples, it almost sounds like classical music. I kept meaning to send that to him and thanking him again for his gift, but I waited to long; he passed away in his sleep. As I was saying, carpe diem while you still can, folks.
So here we are with the brand new project, my first full CD in 13 years, hard to believe! I really don't know if anyone will dig it; it seems like such a niche thing. I guess it's progressive rock; is it really music? We've been debating that. Our songs are at turns odd, atonal, quirky, eerie, creepy, haunting, and exhilarating. Not for the faint-hearted, The Fright Watch takes the listener on a journey through strange sounds and dark textures. Hope you like it!
---Steve Peters
Also, check out here on eBay Pictures of a Pandemic, the second album by The Fright Watch, which uses drum loops by Bill Bruford on all 10 tracks.