IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING (1969)
1) 21st
Century Schizoid Man; 2) I Talk To The Wind;
3) Epitaph; 4) Moonchild; 5) The Court Of The Crimson King.
General verdict: Progressive rock at
its earliest, finest, and trend-settingest.
One of the biggest wonders of 1969,
a year fairly ripe with those, was when, almost overnight, the lovably
eccentric gentlemanly British trio of Giles, Giles & Fripp mutated into the
progressive monster of King Crimson. Granted, given that Robert Fripp had been
highly interested in all things «progressive» even prior to forming that
particular partnership, The Cheerful Insanity must have seemed to him more
like a temporary detour from the chosen path, but since we have very little
evidence of Robert's creativity prior to 1968, formally this is exactly what we
have — an instantaneous evolution of a comedic, or at least a very
«lightweight», act into one of the most seriously minded and visionary bands of
its time. Heck, of all time.
Naturally, by 1968, let alone 1969,
progressive pop music, avidly integrating the forms, chords, and techniques of
classical, jazz, and Eastern music into the framework, was nothing new, and
King Crimson had plenty of precursors — the poppier ones (Moody Blues), the bluesier
ones (Procol Harum), and even a bit of the «real thing», like The Nice with
Keith Emerson. But history tells us that «progressive music» never truly had such
a flashy flag-bearer before In The Court Of The Crimson King came out
and grabbed everybody's attention — I mean, the album cover alone is
revolutionary, and probably explains the band's commercial success better than
anything. It is not a matter of any one thing in particular, but rather a
matter of how it all came together, and how it all came together so completely
out of the blue, to the stupefaction of Pete Townshend and everybody else who
praised the record.
With Peter Giles out of the
original trio, the first official King Crimson lineup, in addition to Fripp and
Michael Giles, now included Ian Macdonald on woodwinds and keyboards, and a new
powerhouse singer in Greg Lake; equally important was the official inclusion
into the band of Peter Sinfield, who did not play or sing, but provided all the
lyrics for the band — stressing the importance of words, which, come to think of it, is a fairly common idea in
progressive rock, but one that does not particularly apply to the silent Robert
Fripp and his preference for hours and hours of instrumental improvisations.
Nevertheless, this first incarnation of King Crimson still had a long way to go
to evolve into the more or less «default» state of King Crimson — heck, in
1969-1970 Robert Fripp himself looked like a goddamn hippie.
It is also important to note that
the sessions were self-produced — the band's early collaboration with Moody
Blues' producer Tony Clarke was unsuccessful, and ultimately Fripp took matters
in his own hands, where they would forever remain from then on. And it is all
the more important since, I would say, the best albums are those that, after
years upon years of listening, are still capable of retaining a mystery angle —
and in the case of Court, this mystery angle, to me, is precisely
related to production. I lack the skill to put this into the proper technical
words, but layman-wise, this record sounds like shit — and it sounds amazing.
The mix is clumsy and cluttered; the drums often sound as if made of cardboard;
Ian Macdonald's woodwinds are creaky; the Mellotron is overbearing and seems to
occupy way too much space for such a, let's admit it, primitive emulation of
the sounds of a string orchestra. And yet, somehow, none of that matters — or, perhaps,
all of it matters in that it makes the recording all the more unique and
awesome. Here is a band working at the top of its technical potential, on a
lousy 8-track machine, and creating involving and engaging soundscapes that
have never been surpassed since.
In fact, this whole album is like
trying to run a modern video game on an antiquated PC, where you have to make
all sorts of trade-offs and compromises, but sometimes end up with weirdly
wond'rous results. In terms of ambitions, there was nothing like this in 1969:
a record about the upcoming end of the world, the tragic fate of self-deluding
humanity, and the big final ball presided over by the Crimson King himself —
with Peter Sinfield, one of rock music's most pretentious poets, taking care of
the lyrics, and Greg Lake, one of rock music's most pompous singers, taking
care of their vocalisation. In the wrong hands, this could easily turn into a
laughable embarrassment (and, well, according to some listeners, predictably
including the illustrious Robert Christgau, it did). Fortunately, the hands were
right.
The record's first, best, and most
historically important track actually functions as a prelude to the whole thing
if you accept its (intentional or accidental) conceptuality. The big bang with
which ʻ21st Century Schizoid Manʼ makes its appearance is arguably the biggest
musical bang of 1969: when, after the briefly deceptive «wind intro», the
guitars, saxes, and rhythm section crash out of your speakers with no warning,
there's a jump effect, a big power-chord blast that blows your mind instantly
in a simple, but efficient way next to which even the most aggressive Hendrix
intros could look like nuance and subtlety itself. In a way, this is the
KISS-est riff in King Crimson history; although Fripp would later be no
stranger to the simple, brutal heavy rock riff (ʻLarks' Tongues In Aspic Part
IIʼ, ʻRedʼ, ʻTHRAKʼ, etc.), ʻ21st Century Schizoid Manʼ states its point
with the broadest of brushstrokes. The little touches are not so much
gut-frightening as they are theatrically exciting — the way McDonald's sax gets
to sound like an air raid siren, the bizarre «iron man» distortion effect on
Lake's vocals, the metallic-militaristic clang of Fripp's guitar — ʻ21st
Century Schizoid Manʼ is not ʻGimmie Shelterʼ, its central function is not
to spook you, but to electrify you, and the entire ʻMirrorsʼ section, the
fastest and most maniacal piece of music in King Crimson's early catalog,
electrifies like little else. Even though the drums sound awful. They are great
drums, and Michael Giles may be one of the world's most underrated drummers,
but they sound almost hilariously thin. There's that bit in the middle where
they play several series of notes really fast, all band members in
unison, with a series of rapid stops-and-starts — the thinness of the drum
sound is particularly noticeable there, but only adds to the overall charm of
the passage (which is one of my favorite examples of how technicality and
precision need not be the enemy of emotional expression).
After the storm is over, comes the
actual body of the album — which, despite the first track and the grizzly album
cover, is anything but aggressive or militaristic. ʻ21st Century
Schizoid Manʼ is the contextual setting, a picture of a world presided by
madness and standing at "paranoia's poison door"; but senses are quickly
placated by the introduction of The Romantic Hero, performed by Mr. Lake, who
spends the rest of the day talking to the wind (but the wind does not hear),
crawling a cracked and broken path (but he fears tomorrow he'll be crying),
talking to the trees of the cobweb strange (technically, that is not him, but
The Moonchild, but if the Romantic Hero can see that, he is just as loony), and
waiting outside the pilgrim's door with insufficient schemes (because he can
hardly do anything about puppets dancing in the court of the crimson king). If
all of this is taken superficially, with 90% attention paid to Peter Sinfield's
lyrics, this whole journey will look, at best, like hackneyed
romanticism, and at worst, like a set of poorly rigged cliches, and not even
Lake's powerful (but rather formulaic) singing can save the day.
But the strength of In The Court
is primarily in the music — and, in fact, if you listen to the instrumental
mixes of some of these songs on the anniversary reissue, they never lose any of
their magic without the vocalist. The two power ballad epics, ʻEpitaphʼ
and ʻThe Court Of The Crimson Kingʼ, are masterful testaments to the power
of the Mellotron, with complex overdubs creating crescendos and counterpoints
that put the Moody Blues to shame, and Macdonald's woodwinds complement them
perfectly, while Fripp's mournful minimalistic guitar melody on ʻEpitaphʼ
is his earliest, simplest, and most effective attempt at bottling the entire
sorrow of humanity in just a few drawn out licks. Against a background like
this, Lake's faux-operatic "I fear tomorrow I'll be crying" is almost
convincing — almost, I say, because it is not really the type of
delivery that should bring tears to your eyes, but it is... impressive.
The shorter, slightly more pastoral ballad ʻI Talk To The Windʼ, which
goes all the way back to the late days of Giles, Giles & Fripp (an early
version is available on The Brondesbury Tapes with Judy Dyble on
vocals), also works perfectly fine instrumentally, with soft jazzy guitar and flute
solos that convey an atmosphere of lightness and nonchalance — very
contrastive with the roar of ʻSchizoid Manʼ.
Then there's ʻMoonchildʼ. Heh. I
guess everyone who listens to this album begins by hating ʻMoonchildʼ, or
at least about two thirds of it that roll in once the sung part is over. I know
I used to — I mean, who needs these seven or eight minutes of little
quiet noises, with no melody in sight and the entire band sounding like it is
just tuning up or messing around, setting up its instruments in the studio?
Fortunately, I'm good now — that entire section is fun, since what it
basically does is simulate the hustle-bustle of those night fairies,
will-o'-wisps, whatever, described in the first verse. If you say,
"ʻMoonchildʼ is good because it is a bold experiment in bringing the
values of avantgarde/atonal jazz to a rock-based environment", you fail.
But if you say, "ʻMoonchildʼ is cool because it creates a vivid nocturnal
picture of little fairies running around their business in the bushes, trees,
and the glades", you just might have something there. Then, actually,
some of the transformations through which the guitars and the vibraphone are
put might begin to make sense.
Most importantly, it all hangs
together so well — the maniacal-militaristic setting threatening the peaceful
existence of the Hero, the Hero's lonely and self-sufficient existence, the
Hero's desperation as he finds himself unable to do anything about the world's
troubles, the Hero's eventual descent into a world of dreams, illusions, and
yellow jesters, the ultimate triumph of The Crimson King as the world slowly,
solemnly, and inescapably marches towards extinction. The songs came from
different places, and there was never any intent of making this into a unified
conceptual album from the beginning, but you know how it goes: the best
conceptual albums are those whose concept only arises postfactum.
To be honest, I am still not
quite sure if Greg Lake was really the best candidate to sing all these songs,
or if Peter Sinfield was the best candidate to come up with the lyrics. «Pretentiousness»
is not an accusation that worries me in any way when the music is emotionally
stimulating, and I have never had any real problems with these guys, but I
still can't help wondering if the album could be even better than it is if its
verbal aspect was less grand-theatrical and more «realistic», or at least if
the lyrics were a little bit less classicist and the vocals were a little less
wooden (think Peter Hammill, for instance). In other words, I do not feel that
the music and the voice/words here are integrated so tightly that the album
couldn't stand a little improvement. But, just like silly inescapable plotholes
in an otherwise invigorating and addictive videogame, this is hardly an
enjoyment-blocking problem. Neither is the creaky production which, as I
already said, actually adds to the charm — particularly 40 years later,
when the vintage qualities of Crimson King are so refreshing among the
oceans of soulless perfection from the latest generations of neo-proggers. Maybe
the title track and ʻMoonchildʼ could stand a little trimming,
particularly if their magnitude came at the expense of other song ideas... bottomline
is, I cannot really think of anything serious to throw at the album,
other than, if I'd ever have to perform it in public, I would have to re-write
most of the lyrics (I mean, "between the iron gates of fate the seeds of
time were sown" — trying to find new word combinations to recreate the
frissons of 18th century poetry was one of the worst ideas by the «rock poets»
of the prog era).
Somebody — no, don't remember who —
once said that each of the tracks on In The Court gave birth to a
separate sub-genre of progressive rock, or something to that effect. Naturally,
that would be an exaggeration (ʻEpitaphʼ and the title track could not have
given birth to two different genres!), but in between the jazz-punkishness
of ʻMirrorsʼ, the atonal midnight noodlings of ʻMoonchildʼ, the
pastoral flutes of ʻI Talk To The Windʼ, and the Mello-marshes
of ʻEpitaphʼ, the pool of ideas is really huge, and, best of all, all of
these ideas are realized to the best possible effect. The lack of production
gloss works in favor of the album, making it come alive in all its roughness;
and even if Sinfield's lyrics are very much of their time, the music itself is
timeless — or, at least, «dated» in the best way possible, as in, «written in
one of the finest years for pop music ever».
It is useful to note that, although
not all of the reception was favorable at the time, this and the immediate
follow-up, In The Wake Of Poseidon, still turned out to be the most
commercially successful albums by King Crimson ever — both because of
the novelty of it all and also because unlike most KC albums, these two
actually have a certain «mass appeal». Most importantly, though, without this
album there would have been no Yes, no ELP, no Genesis... well, at least
probably not the way we know them, since all these guys owe a massive debt to Crimson
King. It is all the more ironic that Fripp himself, having started this
business, quickly shifted gears, and by 1973, would be veering off in a
completely different direction from the regular symph-prog acts — a shift that
salvaged King Crimson's reputation at a time when «progressive» was becoming a
curse word, and retained them as one of the very few prog bands that could
still garner a nice word or two from mainstream rock criticism. Some people
could spend their entire career recreating the atmosphere of Crimson King
over and over again — for the real Crimson King, this was just a
glorious first stop on an unpredictable journey.
Yet it is regrettable that once the
original band collapsed, the only song that remained in the KC repertoire was
ʻSchizoid Manʼ — understandable, because it was indeed the only one to remain
fully compatible with the band's 1973-74 aesthetics (later, it disappeared
during the Discipline period, but was occasionally revived in the 1990s
when KC got heavier once more), but regrettable all the same, since it created an
illusion that Fripp had pretty much disowned the entire «romantic» period of
the band. I have no idea — perhaps he does feel a little uneasy about
his Lake/Sinfield experience, although, on the other hand, the extreme care
that went into the preparation of the multi-CD 40th anniversary edition would
speak for the contrary. In any case, how Frippian of him — point the way (or,
rather, several ways) to legions of aspiring musicians, then fold his hands
behind his back and leisurely take the other path. You do not have to
love the Robert, but you gotta admit there ain't another one like him — not
after he sold his soul to the Crimson King, who likes putting his mark on
victims of cheerful insanity.
Another great review. It is impressive how you can review the same album multiple times and still add another layer of depth and new insights or ways for the reader (of the blog) to listen to the album.
ReplyDeleteIt may please you to know that recently KC has reinstalled Epitaph and Court of the Crimson King in their setlists next to 21st Schizoid Man.
As well as "Moonchild" - the song portion of it.
DeleteI kinda figured "Moonchild" was written with only a listener's 1st spin of the LP in mind.
ReplyDeleteFor all the "Moonchild" haters, on 40th Anniversary edition there is a 9 minute edited version. :-)
ReplyDeleteActually found this through that '1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You DIE' book, picked it right up from the library and popped her on...Yeah, i did NOT have a sufficient musical vocab to decode Schizoid Man. It was a cool start and a cool end with a whole lot of pointless noise sandwiched between. The record sounded vaguely 60's flower power like my mom's golden oldies but a lot bigger and more stretched out. Now i see the whole thing as a hippie's dissociative fever dream, one that buzzkill reality keeps crashing but in all this pseudo poetic code- Epitaphs and stringed puppets and what not. Some burnout who can't bare to look at tumultuous reality retreating into fun & games where they're a wizard or some shit. There's no place like home!
ReplyDelete