At the end of the 1970s, Robert Fripp was not exactly notorious for exuberant wit.

After all, he had the reputation of an authoritarian rock robot who humorlessly drove his heart band King Crimson through labyrinths of intricate time signatures and complex polyphony.

But when he announced his first solo album "Exposure" in 1979 with the words that it was the "third part of a middle-of-the-road trilogy", the proverbial joke was breathing down his neck.

Because what could be heard on this diary set to music – rough punk gestures, dreamy “Frippertronics”, new wave hits gone off track, audio vérité scraps of sound – was at odds with the listening habits of a mass audience.

And yet the album captures all sides of Fripp's complicated personality.

So it's only logical that he lacks any stylistic consistency.

What is surprising, however, is that you don't miss them at all.

It is no accident that the British "Wire" magazine ennobled "Exposure" as "The Sgt. Pepper of Avant-Punk".

What are "Frippertronics"?

After early retiring the third issue of King Crimson in 1974, working with ambient visionary Brian Eno, and producing the second Peter Gabriel album and Daryl Hall's Sacred Songs, Fripp cheerfully went to the New Yorker shake up the new wave scene.

His appearances with Blondie or the Talking Heads are legendary.

Above all, however, he was obsessed with the “Frippertronics” developed together with Eno.

The best example of this is a concert recording from the Washington Methodist Church, which has now been released for the first time in the box set "Exposures", which brings together all the solo works from 1977 to 1983 on thirty-two CDs, including DVDs and Blu-rays.

The more than seventy hours of unreleased “Frippertronics” alone leave the listener stunned and inspired at the same time.

At that time, only two "Revox" tape recorders were necessary to allow guitar signals to wander back and forth, to layer them on top of each other and to change them subtly.

Sound sculptures pile up, hypnotically meandering soundscapes turn out to be a "mental map" of Fripp's tonal imagination.

They also frame the re-recording of Peter Gabriel's pensive masterpiece Here Comes The Flood.

The version with Fripp sounds much more subtle and pure, now atmospherically compressed again in a previously unreleased early mix.

But in addition to longing sound dreams and elegiac ballads ("North Star", "Mary"), Fripp also appreciated the energy of New and No Wave during his time in New York, as it was released in the environment of the notorious CBGB club.

The title track "Exposure" with its manic beat and clanking funk guitar can now be heard with Ian McDonald's flute tones and Tim Cappello's soulful saxophone interjections.

In the over-the-top dance number You Burn Me Up I'm A Cigarette, Fripp recalls classic 1950s rock 'n' roll.

The piece also anticipates the kinetic energy of the dance band The League of Gentlemen, founded in 1980: dance music from the freezer, heated with a blowtorch,

Before that, however, Fripp had disturbed his fan base with the two solo albums "God Save The Queen / Under Heavy Manners" and "Let The Power Fall".

The "Frippertronics" turned into pounding "Discotronics" or whipping "Eurotronics" - matching the calculated, hysterical singing of David Byrne, who shrugged off the madness of all isms ("solipsism, euphemism, pessimism, pointillism, legalism, nihilism, terrorism") lends voice.

All the outtakes, alternative takes and new mixes of this inexhaustible piñata condense into an architecture of extremes.

Throughout his life, Robert Fripp operated outside of the pop mainstream – and whenever possible outside of the music industry's exploitation structures.

Self-determination in artistic and economic terms was more important to him than anything else.

At the same time, the seventy-eight-year-old still presents himself as a hungry innovator.

In the King Crimson concerts of recent years he often seemed like a guest at his own party, but he controlled the highly complex sound with almost invisible gestures.

In his intricate, gently distorted solos, he often trusts in the energy of the moment, the magic of improvisation.

Perhaps the most beautiful paraphrase of Fripp's guitar art - the "Exposures" box provides the ultimate proof of this - comes from his singer Daryl Hall: "When Robert plays the guitar it sounds like the universe is crying."

Robert Fripp: "Exposures". Studio/Live 1977-1983.

25 CDs, 3 DVDs, 4 BluRays.

Dgm (Galileo) RFBX101.