APPY TALK!
A reissue round-up for Theo Travis and Robert Fripp, plus three new experimental music apps with Brian Eno collaborator.
Theo Travis and Robert Fripp’s reissue campaign continues with Between The Silence, a three-CD compilation featuring live sets from All Saints Church, Broad Chalke in 2009, Bath Festival Spiegeltent in 2010 and All Saints Church, Cheltenham in 2010. “After several Travis & Fripp releases, the label [Panegyric] thought it would be good to have it in a multipackage,” Travis tells us. “They are three different types of concerts in different venues and there’s lots of contrasts, so that keeps it interesting.”
Something else to keep things interesting is the duo’s new Travis & Fripp iPhone and iPad app, developed by Brian Eno app collaborator Pete Chilvers.
“Pete suggested the idea,” says Travis. “It sounded pretty cool and I proposed it to Robert, who agreed, but it’s taken a couple of years to get from there to here.”
Titled Travis & Fripp I, Travis & Fripp II and Travis & Fripp
III – and featuring gently trippy synched artwork – each app is “in a different key, a different harmonic area”, says Travis.
“My flutey clips and Robert’s guitary clips will be picked by the user, or played in random order, but they’ve been selected and designed to work together in different ways so you get a unique performance each time – ones that will never be repeated, even if you let them float on infinitely.”
As a clip comes up, the date, time and location of recording is shown. Some pieces were recorded this year. “I had to go through the master tracks and find 90 clips that worked,” Travis says. “That’s when we realised we needed to record some new stuff.”
The apps are available for iOS on the App Store now, priced £2.99 each or £6.99 for the three.