js This is one of Frith's more accessible records, but it is hardly commercial. These are mostly fairly short songs that mix traditional Persian and East European instrumental dance music with progressive rock, lounge exotica and Frith's unique brand of avant-garde improvisation. The progressive rock sections bear some resemblance to artists like Zappa, Fripp and Snakefinger. Frith and his band mates play a wide variety of acoustic stringed instruments such as violin, mandolin and acoustic guitar, but Frith also adds a lot of heavily sustained electric guitar melodies in the classic progressive rock tradition of Hackett, Manzanera and once again, Fripp. Some songs on this album are worth special mention. 'Norrgarden Nyvla' starts with a short quirky intro and then lays into a nice Frith violin solo over a Indo-Persian groove. After that lengthy section the whole song breaks down into an odd but catchy triple-tracked guitar melody that wouldn't sound too out of place on an early 70's Zappa record.

The track 'What a Dilemma' is a driving avant-garde hard rock song that is similar to Frith's noisy Massacre band, or some of King Crimson's more harsh tunes. 'A Career in Real Estate' is a trip around the world musically that doesn't sound contrived or pretentious. Despite numerous style and meter changes the whole song hangs together thanks to Frith's ability to create coherent melodies that tie the different sections together. The only song that doesn't meet the standards of the rest of the album is his cover of 'Dancing in the Streets'. The version by Martha Reeves will never be topped, the cover by Black Oak Arkansas isn't bad either, but this version is boring and tedious and contains none of the original's magic.

Fred Frith is one of the best composers to come out of the world of rock music. His ability to write interesting melodies with constantly shifting time signatures is unparalleled in this genre. If you want to check out his music, this album is a good place to start.

snobb Eye To Ear III is third in 13 years Frith's collection of his written and recorded soundtrack music.The first 11 titles on this CD make up The Troja Suite,dark and in moments heavy and dynamic collection of quirky compositions for Hussi Kutulcan's "Drei Gegen Troja" movie soundtrack. Frith plays guitar,bass and keyboards, and has violinist,percussionist and trumpeter on support. If by any chance you didn't know this music is originally soundtrack when listened, possibly you could be a bit surprised:besides of some well crafted compositions (few of them even have funny a-la metal guitar attacks), many are too amorphous,unfocused and openly too long. As soundtrack, this music is great illustrative sound though.

Second part of the album is soundtrack to 2004 documentary Thirst (five compositions under common title "Water Music"). In this case the title is really representative - compositions all are liquid,almost amorphous, with strong influence of ambient and world music. Happily often balancing on the new age border,music never crosses it. Frith's guitar,bass,keyboards and violin are supported there by small orchestra of Eastern winds and strings instruments.

I never saw above mentioned films,but I expect both soundtracks could really work successfully with visual line.As separate musical release,these compositions are not essential to be listened with big interest though.

snobb One of RIO core figure and well-known NY down town artist Fred Frith's "Allies" were originally composed and recorded by him in 1989 on request of Bebe Miller as suite for the Brooklyn Academy of Music's "Next Wave'" series. Originally Fred used drum programming, and some years later unhappy with the sound of beat machine he asked his previous colaborator on Naked City project drummer Joey Baron to re-record tracks.

This album is a result , and generally you can hear that final sound is just Baron's drumming mixed over the previous recorded musical mix, what really limited his possibilities. All music was written as soundtrack for (modern) dance show, so it's well structured and quite accessible to listen. Fred plays solo on some different instruments (one - on every other song, including bass,violin,tape manipulation and drum machine besides of more usual guitars)with support of cellist Tom Cora and sax player George Cartwright.

Music is all pre-composed and sound well-calculated,angular and even mathematic by it's structure. For sure,initial drumming machine rhythm influenced the character of music, but it's obvious there are big element of Frith's quirky chamber-influenced sound coming from his Henry Cow years as well. Rhythms are complex and are changing in progress of compositions,at the same time melodic tunes are presented in every composition. Possibly not very various dynamically, this release are one of most matured and pleasantly accessible Frith solo album, even if it could be placed only somewhere on the borderline with real improvisational jazz.

js 'Cheap at Half the Price' is the third album by Fred Frith as a band leader, it is preceded by the brilliant world music influenced first album 'Gravity', and the more avant-garde sophomore effort 'Speechless'. 'Cheap', just like 'Gravity', turns to Eastern Europe and the Middle East for musical inspiration, but unfortunately 'Cheap' is not nearly as successful as 'Gravity'. The difference between the two albums is that 'Gravity' is mostly instrumental, but 'Cheap' is made up of odd world/avant-garde/pop songs that often feature Frith's 'quirky' vocals, and that is a problem. Fred Frith cannot sing. I think he knows this but assumes that since this is avant-garde rock his clever socio-political insights will be good enough to pull things off. The truth is Frith's music sounds so much better when he stays instrumental, which is proven on this album by the several instrumental songs on side two. The other problem with 'Cheap' is that a lot of the songs were built from pre-recorded drum tracks that repeat the same pattern (some of these drum patterns also show up on other Frith albums). Once again 'Gravity' was much better because the songs were performed by live musicians playing creative arrangements that included a lot of rhythmic variations.

This album is OK, but Frith is capable of much better.