King Crimson: Absent Lovers

KING CRIMSON: ABSENT LOVERS (1998 /rec. 1984/)

1) Entry Of The Crims; 2) Larksʼ Tongues In Aspic, Part III; 3) Thela Hun Ginjeet; 4) Red; 5) Matte Kudasai; 6) Industry; 7) Dig Me; 8) Three Of A Perfect Pair; 9) Indis­cipline; 10) Sartori In Tangier; 11) Frame By Frame; 12) Man With An Open Heart; 13) Waiting Man; 14) Sleepless; 15) Larksʼ Tongues In Aspic, Part II; 16) Discipline; 17) Heartbeat; 18) Elephant Talk.

General verdict: This is the one true reason why King Crimson was destined to survive the Seventies.

So it took Fripp about 14 years to release a fully representative live set for his bandʼs Eightiesʼ lineup — and to this day, Absent Lovers remains the only such document to be widely available for consumers, although the extensive Collectorsʼ Club series does feature about 6–7 additional shows stretching from 1981 to 1983. Even so, it is hard to shake the feeling that Robert himself is somewhat under-appreciative of this period in KC history, preferring to either plunge himself into Seventiesʼ nostalgia or, instead, concentrate on the evolution of the band in the 21st century. Maybe he thinks that those years were a little too pop-oriented to properly convey and symbolize the essence of King Crimson, or maybe he is subconsciously jealous of Adrian Belew stealing way too much spotlight for himself in those years — it is only possible to speculate on this matter, but it is clear that the more time passes by, the fewer happy memories survive.

Which is, of course, a pity, because from a lot of perspectives Absent Lovers is the one most perfect, most well-rounded, most energetic and inspiring King Crimson live album to ever see the light of day. It may not be the most well-representative of the bandʼs enormous and diverse legacy — there is no ʽ21st Century Schizoid Manʼ in the setlist, no ʽEpitaphʼ, no ʽFractureʼ, no ʽStarlessʼ — but there was no better time in KC history when the band would actually sound more live in the fundamental sense of the word. And for that, we do indeed have to thank Adrian Belew, as well as Tony Levin, KCʼs liveliest bass player: in this particular four-man lineup, Belew and, to a slightly lesser extent, Levin are the perfect Dionysian counterpoint to Frippʼs and, to a slightly lesser extent, Brufordʼs Apollonian structurality (though both pairs of players can occasionally switch or merge functions if the context requests it). The Fripp / Belew contrast, in particular, was arguably the most exciting contrast ever — the calm, strong, stable, confident anchorman and the wild, playful, hystrionic, hopping entertainer, although beneath the surface you can easily see a strong will to entertain on the part of the former and a strict, well-organized sense of discipline on the part of the latter.

The performance here was recorded on July 11, 1984, at The Spectrum in Montreal, which was the very last show for the Belew / Levin / Bruford lineup, yet shows nary a hint of tiredness or boredom — if anything, KC only draw rather than dissipate energy for each show they play, so the later, the better. It also gives us a good chance to hear a fully representative retrospective of the entire early Eightiesʼ trilogy, with the best album (Discipline) and the latest album (Three Of A Perfect Pair) in the lead and Beat lagging a bit behind, but thatʼs OK. The bandʼs earlier legacy is restricted here to just two classic instrumentals from the golden days of 1973–74 — ʽRedʼ and ʽLarksʼ Tongues In Aspic, Pt. 2ʼ — but both are performed quite faithfully, implying that the musical styles of prog-era and New Wave-era King Crimson might not be that different from each other after all. That said, it could be argued that it is precisely the live setting which draws them closer together, because the difference in style between the studio counterparts of these Eightiesʼ performances and their live renditions is stunning — just about every live track here blows its studio original away, so much so that ʽThela Hun Ginjeetʼ and ʽSleeplessʼ from this album have long since become the default versions of these songs for me, and I only come back to the originals for re-reviewing purposes and such.

The simplest statement of difference, of course, would be to just say that Absent Lovers rocks harder than any KC studio album from the same period — which might not necessarily please Fripp, since this is the kind of statement that typically applies to hard rock bands like the Who or Led Zeppelin, not progressive math-rock projects like King Crimson. But then again, at the beginning of the concert, right after the opening punch of the first two numbers, isnʼt it Adrian who tells the audience to "have a good time, sit tight, yell, scream, spill your beers, have a pleasant evening"? throw in a handful of "fuckinʼ"s and this might just as well have been a Metallica sort of welcome. Want it or not, this is a rock concert, and if that means, for instance, bringing the microphone all the way up on Tony Levinʼs bass, adding a whole lot more «bottom» to the sound than in the studio, well, count me happy.

Even Fripp is completely happy to get into the spirit of things, soloing like a maniac let loose on the slow part of ʽLarksʼ Tongues In Aspic, Pt. 3ʼ and cracking extra fireworks for ʽIndisciplineʼ which goes on for almost twice as long as the original but never feels like it. Belew occasionally falters in his singing, which is to be expected from a guy who is doing that while prancing on the stage and trying to make his guitar walk the thinnest line between discipline and madness at the same time — we can surely forgive him for that, given that most of the time he stays perfectly on key. But in the instrumental sphere of things I find no flaws whatsoever. Particular emphasis should be placed on the Bruford / Levin rhythm section: despite the occasional criticism that Robert may have had for Billʼs style, I think that Absent Lovers, even more so than the some­times overproduced and doctored studio recordings, shows how smoothly he had transitioned from the symphonic textbook of early Seventiesʼ prog to the funkier polyrythmics of prog-cum-New-Wave in the early Eighties.

Like I already said, my own personal favorites here are ʽThela Hun Ginjeetʼ and ʽSleeplessʼ. The former, stripped here of its distracting sampled overdubs, lets you hear the «dialog» between Belewʼs and Frippʼs guitars in all of its insane glory — the «physical» choppy funk rhythms and chicken scratch of Adrian serving as the basis for the «psychic» cyclic waves of Robert, though superficially it is all Belewʼs show, as he goes from classic funky fun to making his guitar sound like broken glass to dive-bombing and whatever other urban ruckus comes into his mind and back to funk again. ʽSleeplessʼ, in the meantime, is here revealed in all of its nightmarish power, with Levinʼs «throbbing» Chapman stick pounding out the restlessness of your brain, while Belew and Fripp create a solid blanket of demonic terror around it — a genuine beast of a performance, and a fairly unique one, since, unless I am mistaken, they never got around to resurrecting the song live after the 1984 tour.

Importantly, if you thought that Discipline-era records were not altogether free of filler, Absent Lovers also fulfills the role of a nearly immaculate best-of-live package: there is not a single song from that era whose absence I would actually miss on this album. Interestingly enough, they omit most of the ambient-ish, atmospheric tracks such as ʽSheltering Skyʼ and ʽNuagesʼ: the closest you get to relaxing and tripping out is on the opening Frippertronic track ʽEntry Of The Crimsʼ, and even that one eventually descends into Hell before you have proper time to go to sleep. Other than that, you have here everything that truly matters — from the weird tribal dance rituals to the avantgarde crescendo build-ups to Belewʼs pop schtick (I know some Crimheads do not care much for songs like ʽMan With An Open Heartʼ, but I am quite fond of its pop hooks, even though I admit that this kind of material benefits the least from being played live). In other words, if you only have time and money for one King Crimson package from the era, it goes without saying that Absent Lovers — easily one of the best live albums of all time — is the true way to go. The only thing that puzzles me about the situation is why they had to wait 14 years to release it officially, especially after having announced so proudly to the excited Canadian audiences that "to top the occasion, we are recording the evening for posterity". ("Whatever posterity is", says Adrian after a brief pause, and it turns out that he did have a point). 

King Crimson: The Night Watch

KING CRIMSON: THE NIGHT WATCH (1997 /rec. 1973/)

1) Easy Money; 2) Lament; 3) Book Of Saturday; 4) Fracture; 5) The Night Watch; 6) Improv: Starless And Bible Black; 7) Improv: Trio; 8) Exiles; 9) Improv: The Fright Watch; 10) The Talking Drum; 11) Larksʼ Tongues In Aspic, Pt. 2; 12) 21st Century Schizoid Man.

General verdict: A historically important high quality recording — great if it serves as your default sample of live King Crimson in 1973, superfluous otherwise.

For those who find Great Deceiver to be overkill (not even mentioning all the gargantuan recent boxsets), The Night Watch instead might be a perfectly well-rounded dose of classic Larks-era live King Crimson. With a fantastically apt title — the performance was recorded at the Concert­gebouw in Amsterdam, a stoneʼs throw from the actual Night Watch — the album gives you a near-complete concert (for some reason, only the opening number, ʽLarksʼ Tongues In Aspic, Pt. 1ʼ was lost and never found) with a nice balance between fully polished compositions and raw improvisations and crystal clear sound quality.

Other than that, though, it is hard to say anything new about this release, since the majority of its improvisations had originally served as the basis for Starless And Bible Black: this here is the original source for ʽTrioʼ, ʽStarless And Bible Blackʼ, and ʽFractureʼ, without the extra edits and overdubs, but the latter were minimal anyway, and bothering about which of the two variants works better is a job for an experienced Crimsonhead, not yours truly. The only other improvised piece which did not make it anywhere, entitled ʽThe Fright Watchʼ, is really a six-minute atonal introduction to ʽThe Talking Drumʼ, with a nice mellotron buildup but hardly worth valuing as a standalone piece.

Let me, therefore, concentrate on one thing and one thing only: unless you rummage through all the archives on those enormous boxsets, out of all the 1973–74 live albums I have heard, The Night Watch arguably features the very, very best version of ʽ21st Century Schizoid Manʼ. Without any sax players in the lineup, Fripp has to take care of almost the entire instrumental section himself, leaving just a little space for Wetton to show his bass prowess and then coming back in with a vengeance. This time around, the guitar tone is thick and growly, and the licks that Robert delivers are all over the place — one moment he is Hendrix, the next one he is Cream-era Clapton, and then, for brief moments, he even forgets himself to the extent of transforming into Woodstock-era Alvin Lee (but only for very brief moments). In comparison, the one version on Great Deceiver is shorter and somewhat «wimpier», whereas the older available version on USA suffers in the sound quality department. (Ironically, I trashed Frippʼs guitar solo in my original negative review of the album — where the heck were my ears back then?).

Other than that, I am really not sure what else to say that has not already been said in the Great Deceiver review. Allegedly, the show at the Concertgebouw was one of the most heavily boot­legged KC recordings of all time, which is an additional (if not primary) reason for the albumʼs official release — but it is also true that the remastered sound is ultimately more colorful and juicy than anything on Great Deceiver, and the record screams to be played loud and proud; it is somehow even easier for me to gain a good feel for ʽFractureʼ on here than in the strange context of all the other songs on Starless And Bible Black. All of this certainly justifies its existence. 

King Crimson: Epitaph

KING CRIMSON: EPITAPH (1997 /1969/)

CD I: 1) 21st Century Schizoid Man; 2) In The Court Of The Crimson King; 3) Get Thy Bearings; 4) Epitaph; 5) A Man, A City; 6) Epitaph; 7) 21st Century Schizoid Man; 8) Mantra; 9) Travel Weary Capricorn; 10) Improv: Travel Bleary Capricorn; 11) Mars.

CD II: 1) In The Court Of The Crimson King; 2) Drop In; 3) A Man, A City; 4) Epitaph; 5) 21st Century Schizoid Man; 6) Mars.

General verdict: As perfect a document of the original bandʼs live sound as possible — echoes of that old, old, old King Crimson from the hippie era.

The one major historical document of the original King Crimsonʼs awesomeness on stage, Epitaph comes in two varieties — a regular two-disc set for the average consumer, such as yours truly, and an expanded four-disc monster for the fully loyal vassal, which can be obtained via DGM. The main two discs are packaged with proper respect for the average consumer: they contain tracks from three different events (four live recordings for the BBC, three from shows at the Fillmore East, and ten from the Fillmore West) with a nice sprinkling of previously unheard and occasionally non-overlapping compositions. The only performances to be captured thrice are ʽ21st Century Schizoid Manʼ (which should be alright with everybody) and ʽEpitaphʼ proper (not so alright, since its symph-prog nature leaves little room for improvisation or any other type of sonic maneuvering). If you do opt for the 4-disc version, though, remember that there will be no further surprises — also, the sound quality of those recordings, from the 9th National Jazz and Blues Festival and the Chesterfield Jazz Club respectively, seems to be inferior.

In any case, what we have here is two hours of live greatness from the original KC, dating both from before the release of In The Court (BBC recordings) and after (the American shows). Predictably, the band performs all three major epics from that album, though not ʽI Talk To The Windʼ and not ʽMoonchildʼ (the former omission is quite curious, the latter may have been deemed either way too quiet for the live performance or way too demanding even from the 1969 brand of listener). Additionally, we have here early previews of ʽPictures Of A Cityʼ and ʽDevilʼs Triangleʼ from In The Wake Of Poseidon, the former still under its earlier title ʽA Man, A Cityʼ and the latter still being honestly called ʽMarsʼ and featuring a slightly different main riff (Holstʼs estate allegedly prohibited Fripp from releasing ʽMarsʼ itself, so he had to mutate the melody sufficiently enough and retitle the composition).

Tracks that did not see any studio release at all are predictably inferior, but still instructive. ʽGet Thy Bearingsʼ from the BBC set is a Donovan track from Hurdy Gurdy Man which they likely adapted for a while due to lack of their own original material — a bluesy/jazzy little vamp with  serious sax presence, giving Ian McDonald plenty of room to stretch out, but, honestly, rather anticlimactic when sitting next to ʽ21st Century Schizoid Manʼ. ʽMantraʼ is a quiet short piece, dominated by Frippʼs soft folksy-jazzy guitar picking and McDonaldʼs recorder, almost like something the Grateful Dead would produce in the middle of a jam session and, consequently, probably a nice gift for Fillmore West residents. From there, it segues into an even jazzier ʽTravel Weary Capricornʼ and its improv counterpart, ʽTravel Bleary Capricornʼ, which, for some reason, features Robert trying his hand at flamenco guitar — not to be taken too seriously, as hinted at by the fact that he begins it by quoting the intro to ʽBungalow Billʼ from the White Album (again, a touch of humor that shows the old spirit of Giles, Giles & Fripp was still flickering).

Finally, you get to hear the moody jazz number ʽDrop Inʼ, with its memorable, but not very pleasant (because offkey!) acapella introduction by Lake; the song tries to establish an aura of resigned melancholy, but ends up rather meandering and unfocused — no wonder it was shelved by the original band, only to resurface later as ʽThe Lettersʼ on easily the least inspired album of King Crimsonʼs early years. Not sure if the Fillmore audiences were really excited about this number — now maybe if Lake decided to sing "why donʼt you just drop out" instead of "drop in", they would have felt slightly more at home with this one...

Anyway, what really matters, of course, is not how many hitherto concealed lesser tunes we manage to recover on Epitaph, but precisely how well they are able to do ʽ21st Century Schizoid Manʼ. Of the three versions, the last one (Fillmore West) has the best sound quality, although Robertʼs guitar solo is oddly thin, almost as if the shadow of Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service hang so persistently over the place that Fripp was involuntarily accomodating his feedback-drenched, jazz-avantgarde style to the psychedelic droning philosophy of the West Coast. Nevertheless, this is what makes the piece great — even in its very first year of existence, they were able to offer fairly different intepretations. And, just like the studio version, these live performances sound relatively unpolished — the drummer, the sax player, the guitarist all make occasional mistakes throughout the songʼs fast tempo, and their equipment, though probably decent enough by the standards of ʼ69, is insufficient to carry out a massively overwhelming attack on the senses the way it would be able to just four or five years later. Still, it compensates for this with sheer enthusiasm and excitement — always great to hear a masterpiece played right at its very inception, rather than at a stage when it becomes bearded and fossilized.

Lake does a great vocal job on ʽSchizoid Manʼ, too, even without any distorted effects on the vocals — except where the studio recording gave us the creepy perspective of a half-synthetic robo-human, these live versions rather express the organic terror of a rebellious human being, which is a bit more common but also fairly relatable. Unfortunately, ʽEpitaphʼ and ʽIn The Courtʼ, two epics that are way more vocally demanding, lay bare Gregʼs biggest weakness — he has a hard time correctly holding all the right notes and playing bass simultaneously, so those of you with perfect pitch will find yourself cringing every now and then; plus, there is really not that much to do to these songs on stage, other than try as hard as possible to reproduce their studio Mellotron-based depth. The Mellotron actually gets a real hammering on ʽMarsʼ, the one track here that manages to be more aggressive than its final studio realization — perhaps because there was little room for subtlety on stage, and under McDonaldʼs heavy fingers the poor instrument howls, screeches, and agonizes in ways comparable to the Hammond organ agonizing under Keith Emersonʼs knives. Then again, we are talking about an homage to the God of War here.

On the whole, it is safe to say that this was probably far from the best live incarnation of King Crimson — way too rough for the bandʼs general standards — but obviously a unique one. Here, the young and relatively inexperienced King Crimson are still very much a Sixtiesʼ band, with elements of the late Sixtiesʼ jam culture, psychedelia, and folksiness that would be gradually wiped out, one by one, as Fripp would lead them into an entirely new decade of completely new values. But they are already making great music, and you are already getting acquainted with Frippʼs philosophy of «discipline»  and... well, in a way it is just a very symbolic record: the sound of King Crimson, the ultimate intellectualʼs wet dream, maturing and developing (and being fairly well received) at the Fillmore, the ultimate turned-on hippieʼs den. 

King Crimson: THRaKaTTaK

KING CRIMSON: THRAKATTAK (1996)

1) THRAK; 2) Fearless And Highly THRaKKed; 3) Mother Hold The Candle Steady While I Shave The Chickenʼs Lip; 4) THRaKaTTaK Part 1; 5) The Slaughter Of The Innocents; 6) This Night Wounds Time; 7) THRaKaTTaK Part 2; 8) THRAK (reprise).

General verdict: A self-inflicted insult to the awesome legacy of King Crimsonʼs live shows, and a great example of how to abuse the hell out of the art of improvisation.

Say hello to BʼBoomʼs little friend from Hell. My guess is that after the release of his «official bootleg» Fripp became positively disgusted at how blatantly commercial that record looked, stripped almost completely clean of the Double Trioʼs inspirational improvisation — and so, in order to avoid eternal damnation at the final judgement of the Crimson King, decided to atone for that sin by releasing an extra live album that would consist of nothing but improvisation. Even more rigidly, of nothing but several improvised pieces that the band played in the middle of ʽTHRAKʼ — which is why THRaKaTTaK bears this extended emphatic title, and why the record begins and ends with it, sandwiching not one, but six different improvised pieces in between. Actually, no, make that about twenty improvised pieces, since most of the longer tracks are in reality spliced together from different bits, recorded on different nights during the bandʼs shows all over Japan and the USA.

I have never valued this idea and I do believe it takes a very special type of King Crimson fan to support and enjoy it. Improvisation at King Crimson shows, like any improvisation, can be hit or miss — the professionalism and discipline are always there, but genuine inspiration can never be guaranteed; and, naturally, if you are splicing together improvisations from twenty different shows, you are pretty much bound to lose yourself in excess. Indeed, THRaKaTTaK is a messy, dense sonic jungle with absolutely no plan of the area in sight. There are tons of dynamic moments (hardly surprising, given all the splicing going on), yet the actual tracks are barely distinguishable from one another. Typically, Robert creates some Mellotron-ish ambient canvas of sound, against which Belew explores every possible way to create «ugly» dissonance, or, when he gets bored, makes his guitar sound like a piano and plays atonal runs. The psychological effect is almost always the same — whatever that effect might be.

I remember getting seriously mad at the record in my original review and giving it a zero rating as my only, helpless and ridiculous, way to get some payback — «take that, record!» Decades later, I am no longer able to get that pissed off about an album on which six insanely professional and talented musicians have put together a few moments of having spontaneous fun. However, I am still unable to appreciate it in any way: it did not work as a musical statement in 1996, and it has not begun working today. Was it really a hooliganish gesture — Frippʼs personal Metal Machine Music, to baffle and befuddle even some of the most loyal fans? Or was it thoroughly narcissistic, an arrogant statement of «every note played by King Crimson is sacred»? Or was it just a side effect of exuberance at having their own record label, so they could put out anything and not give a damn? Nobody will ever know for sure, even if Fripp himself goes ahead and spills the beans, because the man is to be revered, but not to be trusted.

King Crimson: B'Boom - Live In Argentina

KING CRIMSON: BʼBOOM - LIVE IN ARGENTINA (1995)

1) VROOOM; 2) Frame By Frame; 3) Sex, Sleep, Eat, Drink, Dream; 4) Red; 5) One Time; 6) BʼBoom; 7) THRAK; 8) Improv: Two Sticks; 9) Elephant Talk; 10) Indiscipline; 11) VROOOM VROOOM; 12) Matte Kudasai; 13) The Talking Drum; 14) Larksʼ Tongues In Aspic, Part II; 15) Heartbeat; 16) Sleepless; 17) People: 18) BʼBoom (reprise); 19) THRAK.

General verdict: Excellent live document of the Double Trio period, but fairly short on surprises of any kind.

This live album, subtitled The Official Bootleg, was allegedly released as a remedy to the evil circulation of a poor quality Italian bootleg documenting the Double Trioʼs Argentinian shows (which does make one wonder if Robert Fripp was so far out of touch with the world that he had never seen a King Crimson bootleg prior to 1995). It may be worth noting that the Discipline lineup did not put out a live album upon dissolving at all (Absent Lovers would not see the light of day until 1998), let alone all those almost defiantly short and not particularly representative live albums from the Seventies — as if one of the greatest live progressive rock acts of all time believed that The Time Has Not Yet Come for the entire world to absorb all that awesomeness, and that all those tapes, diligently recorded and preserved, should be allowed to stew and ferment, biding their time... and now, all those hopes and dreams quashed by some Italian bootlegger. (For the record, the bootlegger was eventually tracked down, hacked in little pieces, and scattered all across the country with each limb bearing a tag saying THE CRIMSON KING SAYS HELLO. Police are still trying to crack the case.)

Anyway, as it stands, BʼBoom now holds the dubious honor of having been the very first ever officially released King Crimson live album to be fully representative of a contemporary touring event — 26 years after the groupʼs formation. For longstanding fans of the band, this must have been a very significant event, but, of course, in retrospect it has been completely overshadowed by the flood of archival releases. The Double Trio period was hardly the most liked period in the bandʼs history, and today the relevance of the album will essentially depend on how damn hard you want to hear most of the material from THRAK performed live. To be frank, I do not hear a whole world of difference, the way it would be between the Discipline-era studio records and Absent Lovers. Either this is because they had already seriously emphasized the aggressive RAWK aspect of the songs in the studio, or because technology had reached such a level that they were now able to perfectly reproduce on stage all of their studio effects, something that was not quite there yet in the mid-Eighties — probably both reasons.

The only track that is significantly different is ʽBʼBoomʼ itself, seriously stretched out past its original running length — but this is largely because it consists of an initial atmospheric-ambient part, which can be easily extended to any length it takes to keep the psychedelic haze strong, and a following drum duet, which can be easily extended to any length it takes to let the people decide who kicks more ass, Bruford or Mastelotto. For that matter, to keep things fair and just there is also a bass duet here — ʽImprov: Two Sticksʼ is a surprisingly tender exchange of amicable sentiments between Levinʼs and Gunnʼs instruments, kept short and sweet. On the whole, though, there is a surprisingly small amount of improvisation, which almost gives the album a mock-commercial feel; the non-concert goers would have to wait until THRaKaTTaK to learn how deeply they were mistaken in thinking that Fripp & The Gang had decided to take it easy and transform themselves into a bunch of pop song performers. (Here, the little improvised bit in the middle of ʽTHRAKʼ is just some harmless marimba fun).

Other than THRAK, the Double Trio predictably digs back into the Discipline-era catalog, with ʽIndisciplineʼ as the most sonically adventurous track from the old days — everything else is mostly «weird pop»-style chestnuts like ʽElephant Talkʼ and ʽFrame By Frameʼ. ʽSleeplessʼ gets a re-arranged bridge section, with Fripp adding ʽDisciplineʼ-style jagged-angle guitar leads to the formerly vocal-and-percussion-only arrangement; I do not think this works well, because it disrupts the contrast between loud and quiet that was so important in the first place. ʽHeartbeatʼ gets a romantic piano introduction... wait, of course it ainʼt piano, it is just Adrian adding one more of those beastly effects to his guitar (The Guitar As Orchestra came out in 1995, so I suppose he was only too happy to demonstrate some of that potential to a larger audience than his solo fans). And the only true «oldies» are ʽRedʼ and ʽLarksʼ Tongues In Aspicʼ which they had already played with the Eightiesʼ lineup — except that these ʽLarksʼ are actually preceded with ʽThe Talking Drumʼ, successfully restored from the grave in all its demonic beauty.

On the whole, though, BʼBoom shares the dubious distinction of being that particular live King Crimson album that is perfectly listenable and enjoyable all the way through — and at the same time almost completely expendable. If there ever was a reason to own and cherish it back in 1995, that reason has long since evaporated with the release of tons and tons more interesting and less predictable stuff. Instead of hunting after the audio album, it would probably make much more sense to track down the (still widely available) video Deja VROOOM, documenting the bandʼs 1995 concert in Japan — it has almost the same setlist and gives you the added bonus of seeing the Double Trio in hot action.

King Crimson: THRAK

KING CRIMSON: THRAK (1995)

1) VROOOM; 2) Coda: Marine 475; 3) Dinosaur; 4) Walking On Air; 5) BʼBoom; 6) THRaK; 7) Inner Garden I; 8) People; 9) Radio I; 10) One Time; 11) Radio II; 12) Inner Garden; 13) Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream; 14) VROOOM VROOOM; 15) VROOOM VROOOM: Coda.

General verdict: A slightly cellulitish variant of King Crimson for the Grunge Age — but the mix of nostalgia with then-current production trends still works fine for me.

No band has ever proven itself to be so adaptable to each new musical time period as King Crimson has — that is, of course, if we are talking intelligent adaptations that still allow the music to be easily recognizable and identifiable, while at the same time reflecting and honoring the most serious new musical developments of each period. But as years, and decades, went by, adaptation to new musical developments became harder — simply because it became harder to identify these new developments. And it is not merely old age that has resulted in a lack of properly «iconic» new albums from King Crimson past their third (or was that fourth?) traditional resurrection. It is also the fact that in 1994-95, it was not exactly clear who could serve as Frippʼs new source of inspiration. Last time we checked, it was Talking Heads. But in the mid-1990s? Kurt Cobain? Black Francis? Alanis Morissette?

Still, far be it from us to suggest that Frippʼs brain cells might have gotten too rusty or confused in a period which was, after all, more or less the very last hooray period for rock music in general. On the formal scale, change was reflected in the adoption of a «Double Trio» format — all the players from the Discipline lineup were back, but now augmented with a second bassist (Trey Gunn, an actual graduate of Frippʼs Guitar Craft school) and a second drummer (Pat Mastelotto); apparently, Fripp had acquired this love for weird symmetries, or, perhaps, it was just a part of his evil plan to tone down the presence and influence of Bruford, who was almost supposed not to be part of this new show, but allegedly shamed Robert into letting him back in.

On the substantial scale, the very title of the album (THRAK), as well as that of the mini-album which preceded it with several alternate versions of the same songs (VROOOM), already sort of suggests something fairly brutal and violent — and while it would be pushing things way too far to call this phase King Crimsonʼs «grunge period», I am absolutely certain that the grunge and alt-rock explosion of the early 1990s could not have gone unnoticed by the man who had already, to a large degree, predicted the New Wave revolution, and to an even larger degree, embraced it more wholeheartedly than any of his peers when it did come. In a way, THRAK is a synthesis of the heavy, infernal math-rock of KCʼs Larksʼ Tongues / Red period with the polygonal futurism of their Discipline era — you can think of it as a more structured and disciplined take on Larks or as a heavier, more metallic take on Discipline, it works in both directions. The problem is that when you are able to slap on such a precise definition, the effect becomes predictable, and so THRAK no longer has the capacity of blowing your mind in the same sudden ways as the three previous incarnations of King Crimson could.

Which is not to say that THRAK is not an excellent, consistent, thoroughly enjoyable set of tunes for which I have the same type of love and admiration as, say, the Stonesʼ Voodoo Lounge — we know very well what to expect at this point, but there is still enough inspiration from the general spirit of the times to keep on infecting you even 25 years later. With the exception of a few minor transitional links, every major composition on THRAK has plenty of energy, one or more thick instrumental hooks, and tons of atmosphere. The doubled rhythm sections make the songs seem lumpy and bulgy, but the professionalism of the players gives them all the precision and agility of a raging hippo — or, perhaps, a T-Rex would be a better analogy, given the title of one of the albumʼs most memorable songs, to which we will be coming shortly.

The meat part of any KC album are always the instrumentals, whose titles this time around bring on associations with Batman comics or Jackie Chan movies more than anything else: ʽTHRAKʼ, ʽVROOOMʼ, ʽBʼBoomʼ, ʽVROOOM VROOOMʼ (for all I know, they might be hidden acronyms, but whoʼs crazy enough to want to find out?). And already the first one of these, ʽVROOOMʼ, is an absolutely shameless variation on the melodic structure and atmosphere of ʽRedʼ — one fanfare-like opening riff, one slowly winding main riff, a quiet mid-section (though here, more than anywhere else, the jangly geometry of Discipline is being shown off), and then coming back around full circle for the coda. The riffs are memorable and the band still pushes ahead with all the ferocity of a freshly oiled old Panzer, but one listen to this track is also enough to understand why THRAK will never be remembered with the same sense of awe as its predecessors — as brutal as it may sound, the level of self-plagiarism is through the roof here. That may have been the intention — here we are, making up a new ʽRedʼ for a new generation of music players and music listeners — but these intentions are limited by definition. I actually think that the extended ʽCoda: Marine 475ʼ conclusion to the track is more interesting — unlike the self-plagiarizing ʽRedʼ-based main body of ʽVROOOMʼ, this part sounds more like a King Crimson attempt to put together the codas of ʽI Am The Walrusʼ and ʽI Want You (Sheʼs So Heavy)ʼ and see what happens when you give them the «double trio» treatment.

The impression does not change much when you go through the rest of the instrumentals. Heavy echoes of ʽLarksʼ Tongues In Aspicʼ (both parts), on one hand, and ʽThela Hun Ginjeetʼ and the like, on the other, resonate all through ʽTHRAKʼ and particularly ʽVROOOM  VROOOMʼ; only ʽBʼBoomʼ is different in that it is mainly a skill show for the bandʼs percussionists, with a tribal jungle sound that, for once, does not seem to have any direct analogies in KCʼs past — but letʼs admit it, we have hardly come here with a primary goal of hearing Bruford and Mastelotto play off each other for four minutes.

In the end, THRAKʼs main attraction are its vocal numbers — not entirely original, either, but not as blatantly ripping off past frameworks as the instrumentals. I suppose that Belew should be taking a lot of credit for these. Over an entire decade separating Three Of A Perfect Pair from THRAK, Adrian had grown into a major solo artist in his own right, with four first-rate albums of neo-Beatlesque pop under his belt, and although the base aesthetics of King Crimson strictly prohibits him from sneaking any of those blatantly pop melodies past Inspector Fripp, some of that classic Beatles spirit, particularly its moody and psychedelic parts, still manage to get smuggled in — see ʽPeopleʼ, for instance, with its ʽTomorrow Never Knowsʼ-influenced back­ward guitar solos and ominously repetitive riff in the coda (once again, highly reminiscent of ʽI Want Youʼ). On the other hand, even Belew slips into formula every now and then: the gently dreamy ballad ʽWalking On Airʼ borrows many elements from ʽMatte Kudasaiʼ, a fact that is hard to hide even behind all the extra layers of guitar complexity that this new decade has brought in. (Amusingly, its lyrics also make reference to "sheltering sky", as if we really needed one more reminder of the greatness of Discipline).

Still, the album does contain two of my favourite KC vocal numbers of all time. The already mentioned ʽDinosaurʼ reflects Belewʼs usual eco-minded themes, though the lyrics are clever enough to yield to both universal (inevitable extinction of man) and personal (inevitable extinction of ME) interpretation — what matters most, though, is the slow, lumbering, brooding atmosphere, with lots of dry, creaky, sustained notes that make you picture this very large, very old, very rusty entity that is nevertheless still clinging to life with all the power it can muster, still strong enough to shoo away all the petty youngsters.

Even more catchy — and more terrifying, when you stop for long enough to truly ponder its symbolism — is ʽSex Sleep Eat Drink Dreamʼ, the portrait of the human being as a simplistically programmed genetic machine with severely limited functionality, hung high up on the nail of one of the most distinctly memorable bass riffs in KC history and featuring Belew in total meat zombie mode: "sex... sleep... eat... drink... dream... sex... sleep... eat... drink... dream..." (listen closely and you will see that only the word ʽdreamʼ in this chain is slightly drawn out, with a tiny bit of tenderness involved — creepy, lately I have been noticing it too that dreaming is becoming the most enjoyable part of my life). If the entire album is nowhere close to a masterpiece, ʽSex Sleep Eat Drink Dreamʼ might arguably be the last properly great song in King Crimsonʼs entire catalog — at least, it is definitely the last King Crimson song that has managed to etch itself a permanent position in the back of my brain.

Summing up, I must point out that normally I experience a sense of disappointment with albums like these — seeing great artists clearly making an effort to progress and ultimately failing because even the greatest ones have their natural limits. But despite its obvious shortcomings, THRAK still holds up as a positive, rather than pathetic, experience. It is an album that says to you, «my main goal is to tell you that King Crimson are still alive and that they are aware that musical fashions have shifted once again», but it is written and produced by people who still have not run out of impressive riffs, catchy vocal melodies, and well-disciplined collective energy to pull it all off with gusto. Fripp himself, as far as I know, does not like to remember this period with too much fondness (probably because he never thought reteaming with Belew and Bruford would be such a great idea), and in the overall critical eye it also seems to somehow have slipped through the cracks, but I think that in the general perspective, it was still more innovative and creative than the Construkction Of Light period, for instance. At the very least, like I said, it would be a pity to have the 1990s, arguably the last properly creative decade for rock music, to have remained without an actual King Crimson incarnation — and it would be rash and silly to expect such an incarnation deliver anything better than these results. 

King Crimson: The Great Deceiver

KING CRIMSON: THE GREAT DECEIVER (1973-1974; 1992)

CD I: 1) Walk On... No Pussyfooting; 2) Larksʼ Tongues In Aspic, Part Two; 3) Lament; 4) Exiles; 5) Improv: A Voyage To The Centre Of The Cosmos; 6) Easy Money; 7) Improv: Providence; 8) Fracture; 9) Starless.

CD II: 1) 21st Century Schizoid Man; 2) Walk Off From Providence/No Pussyfooting; 3) Sharksʼ Tongues In Lemsip; 4) Larksʼ Tongues In Aspic, Part One; 5) Book Of Saturday; 6) Easy Money; 7) Weʼll Let You Know; 8) The Night Watch; 9) Improv: Tight Scrummy; 10) Peace – A Theme; 11) Cat Food; 12) Easy Money; 13) It Is For You, But Not For Me.

CD III: 1) Walk On... No Pussyfooting; 2) The Great Deceiver; 3) Improv – Bartley Butsford; 4) Exiles; 5) Improv: Daniel Dust; 6) The Night Watch; 7) Doctor Diamond; 8) Starless; 9) Improv: Wilton Carpet; 10) The Talking Drum; 11) Larksʼ Tongues In Aspic, Part Two; 12) Applause & Announcement; 13) Improv: Is There Life Out There?

CD IV: 1) Improv: The Golden Walnut; 2) The Night Watch; 3) Fracture; 4) Improv: Clueless And Slightly Slack; 5) Walk On... No Pussyfooting; 6) Improv: Some Pussyfooting; 7) Larksʼ Tongues In Aspic Part One; 8) Improv: The Law Of Maximum Distress Part One; 9) Improv: The Law Of Maximum Distress Part Two; 10) Easy Money; 11) Improv: Some More Pussyfooting; 12) The Talking Drum.

General verdict: A milestone in the history of boxed sets, but somewhat outdated now in terms of scope (too much for the beginner, too little for the completionist).

Back in 1992, the release of this sprawling, 4 CD-long archival boxset was nothing short of a minor sensation — the age of the Luxurious Boxset had only just begun, and although quite a few long-bearded bands had already invested in such items, the typical boxset was a compilation, something along the lines of «greatest hits and rarities». Here, by contrast, was a huge document specifically and thoroughly covering one single touring event in King Crimson history, namely, the Larksʼ Tongues and Red years, with several complete or near-complete shows joined together and, consequently, featuring plenty of overlaps (see no fewer than four different versions of ʽEasy Moneyʼ, for instance).

It was obvious from the start that this was a package only for the most dedicated fan, but it is somewhat symbolic that of all the progressive rock greats of the genreʼs golden era, it was Fripp who had chosen to initiate this trend, which, as far as King Crimson is concerned, is still going strong almost thirty years later. Live performance was an essential part of just about every prog rock act, but in King Crimsonʼs case, it was the stage where most of their music either began, as the result of a particularly lucky improvisation on a particularly inspired night, or became fleshed out in its most perfect, visceral, vivid form. For all the greatness of Yes or Genesis, it is hard to deny that their stage performances were essentially honest and efficient reproductions of their studio recordings (with the addition of impressive visuals, especially for Genesis), leaving little space to improvisation and not really following the «crank-it-up-to-eleven» law of a solid rock performance. Fripp took a completely different approach — yet up until the CD age proper audio documentation of King Crimson performances was severely limited by the LP format, at least when it came to the issue of officially releasing and promoting stuff.

Ironically, as we now move out of the CD age and into something completely different, boxsets like The Great Deceiver begin to look obsolete — a transitional state, if you wish, between the ages of «archival tapes rotting in the vaults» and «total availability at the wave of oneʼs finger». For the casual fan, this was overkill from the beginning; for the completionist and the historian, The Great Deceiver has largely been put out of business by even larger subsequent packages, such as Starless and The Road To Red, which in between them contain soundboard recordings of pretty much every show the band played in 1973 and 1974, making Deceiver now look like a puny sample of the goods in comparison.

I, personally, prefer my archival King Crimson in reasonably small doses, such as Epitaph or Absent Lovers, and for all my love and respect towards the band, think that setting oneself the challenge of listening to The Road To Red in its entirety requires a special level of fanaticism which I cannot afford. Even The Great Deceiver is a bit too much for me: I could easily live without more than half of the improvised pieces, and picking out the subtle performance nuances between so many different ʽExilesʼ and ʽFracturesʼ would be a cool task if you were paid to do this on the same level as they pay people to review bubblegum pop in Rolling Stone, but since this is obviously never going to happen, to hell with nuances.

Which is not to deny that 1973–74 was one of the finest moments in King Crimson history — these were, after all, the years during which most prog-rock acts had become to stagnate, repeat themselves, or lose direction, while King Crimson became the only act to have successfully reinvented and modernized their sound, and up until 1992, the only concert document of that reinvention which we had (not counting the studio-doctored live stuff on Starless And Bible Black) was the posthumously released USA: too brief, too non-representative, too quickly forgotten. In particular, we never got around to hear the Larksʼ Tongues incarnation of the band, with wild man Jamie Muir on percussion... oh, thatʼs right, we arenʼt going to hear it on here, either, since all the 1973 concerts included on Deceiver are post-Muir. Still, you do get to hear pretty much all the classic studio material from that epoch, interspersed with tons of improvs, a tiny bit of polite, gentlemanly stage banter, and even a rare live performance of ʽCat Foodʼ whose hysterical vocal melody suits Wetton just as fine as it suited Lake.

If I had to pick just a few exemplary rarities to promote the package for a randomly chosen poor sucker, I might have dwelled a bit on ʽDoctor Diamondʼ, not an improvisation but rather a fairly well-developed outtake from the Red sessions — perhaps its vocal melody was ultimately judged as too folk-bluesy to match the groundbreaking standards of Red, but it is quite a respectable representative of the bandʼs math-rock approach, alternating between jagged blues-rock and slow moving psychedelia with screechy hellish violin. Of the improvisational pieces, I gravitate more towards those with well-established, tight, relatively simplistic rhythms, such as ʽTight Scrummyʼ with its almost Latin percussion — Bruford keeps the tension high for about five minutes, making the entire band sound like «Santana meets Amon Düül II», before it all collapses and the rhythm disappears altogether, leaving the guitar and the violin duel each other to the death for another four minutes (spoiler: nobody wins). Most of the others blur into a homogeneous mass after a while, though my tolerance for large quantities of this mass steadily increases as I grow older and learn to perceive these soundscapes with a bit of cool-headed intellectualized detachment, rather than passionate amazement or equally passionate indignation.

In any case, it is hardly questionable that The Great Deceiver remains, first and foremost, a historical landmark in the story of King Crimson and progressive rock in general — a bold statement, in an era when prog-rock still remained one of rock criticsʼ easiest punching bags, that there was demand out there for more hidden treasures from the vaults, and that this demand was not at all limited to the likes of the Grateful Dead. One thing I cannot say about these recordings, though, is that owning them might be preferable to owning the studio records — if anything, King Crimsonʼs onstage powers only increased with age, whereas in the studio the standards set by Fripp in 1973–74 would arguably never be surpassed. Simply put, to my ears the Fripp / Wetton / Bruford (add or subtract Cross) lineup never gelled that good onstage as would the Discipline lineup — for one thing, Wetton was never that great a bass player, and for another, Brufordʼs love for complex polyrhythmics occasionally leads him to sloppiness: by the 1980s, heʼd actually tighten his act, but here itʼs as if he is still saddled way too much by staying in «Yes mode», which is a great mode for Yes, but not so great for King Crimson.

Of course, none of these criticisms are meant to be taken scientifically or even too seriously — and even if you agree with them, this slight element of sloppiness might seem preferable to some over the tightly run man-machine style of Discipline. But hoo boy, when you hear that tightly run man-machine style actually taken to its limits on stage... well, you can probably tell that The Great Deceiver ends up spending a lot less time in my player than Absent Lovers. 

King Crimson: Three Of A Perfect Pair

KING CRIMSON: THREE OF A PERFECT PAIR (1984)

1) Three Of A Perfect Pair; 2) Model Man; 3) Sleepless; 4) Man With An Open Heart; 5) Nuages; 6) Industry; 7) Dig Me; 8) No Warning; 9) Larks' Tongues In Aspic Part III.

General verdict: Not a highly innovative, but still musically satisfying conclusion to New Wave Crimson.

Technically, the «three» in the title should be the exact same as the «three» in the title track — "she" ("is susceptible"), "he" ("is impossible"), and that elusive third element which always has to be there to break up the perfect correlation, or complete the imperfect triad, whichever angle you prefer. But it is also hard not to correlate the title with the fact that Three Of A Perfect Pair con­cludes the early Eighties trilogy — even if there is little evidence that Fripp intended this album to be the last one during the 1983 sessions. Because it, too, can be seen as one last comple­ment to the formula that was worked out and perfected with Discipline and Beat. Bringing nothing radically new to the table, it does a good job at taking that formula to its logical extremes — the artistic difference between ʽMan With An Open Heartʼ and ʽIndustryʼ stretches out longer than any two points on Discipline or Beat, and, perhaps, that is precisely the point that Three Of A Perfect Pair was supposed to illustrate.

Allegedly, the decision to put «pop songs» on the first side and «avantgarde experiments» on the second one was intentional — so that the fans could take a better look at the two different faces of King Crimson and understand which one they loved best, or, more properly, understand that there was really no internal contradiction between the two. Not everyone did; since most of the fans did not exactly flock to Fripp for «pop» reasons, some of the songs on Side A have the dubious dis­tinction of finding themselves among the most despised numbers in the KC catalog — with poor Ade Belew and his pop fetish taking most of the blame for that, even if Fripp is officially credited as a co-writer on everything (and it is not highly likely that anything could sneak its way onto the album without direct approval from the Overlord).

In any case, material such as ʽMan With An Open Heartʼ is perfectly valid — a catchy, well-written, definitely-not-unintelligent piece of New Wave pop, with a slight touch of Far Eastern influence for its main melodic hook and some gorgeous skating-on-thin-ice interplay between the two guitars; as for the romantic (and, technically, quite pro-feminist) lyrics, ʽMatte Kudasaiʼ had already shown that a heart-on-sleeve attitude would be a permanent fixture of this King Crimson as long as Belew stayed on in the band (plus, lines like "she could be sleeping in the comfort of another bed, it wouldn't matter to a man with an open heart" are actually ambiguous and could be attributed to family problems rather than noble attitude). ʽModel Manʼ, conceived in much the same manner, is less efficient because it does not have a clear hook — more about the lyrical message (Belew's own take on ʽIt Ain't Me, Babeʼ, essentially) as the band just hops around the groove without too much passion.

The title track, however, is where it's really at. Take away the vocals and you have yourself another perfectly jaw-dropping ʽDisciplineʼ-style jab at spinning a geometrically arranged guitar cobweb — with a proto-dial-up-modem guitar solo to boot (reminiscent of Belew's work on Remain In Light's ʽBorn Under Punchesʼ). Throw in the vocals, and it becomes an instantly memorable and even potentially moving pop song — delivered by Adrian in a mournful and empathetic mood that perfectly agrees with lines like "they have their cross to share" and "they make a study in despair". It is on tracks like these, really, where your last doubts about the potential humanity of King Crimson's instrumental style should dissipate: it is not easy to make math-rock sound as if it actually means something (beyond, you know, math), but at their best, the Fripp/Belew team could point your emotionality in the right direction — and now, all of a sudden, those guitar cobwebs seem like a great metaphor for complicated human relations.

Another great achievement, in a completely different subgenre, is ʽSleeplessʼ — one of the scariest tracks in King Crimson's entire repertoire, though, admittedly, it would take a live per­formance to truly bring out all of its potential terror. Unlike the Larks / Red Crimson, the Discipline-era Crimson weren't so keen on nightmare-oriented stuff: ʽSleeplessʼ, too, came around more by accident, after Tony Levin had stumbled across that deep-driving bass pulse, but the rest of the band understood that here was a chance too good to waste, and rallied around the man to create one of the greatest anthems to the «Nightmare of Insomnia» ever written. Slow it down a bit, fiddle around with the tonality, make the vocalist sound on the verge of suicide, and you have a Cure classic. Don't do anything, and you have... I'm not even sure what you have, but it's awesome, especially late at night when it's ghost time, and these four guys take you on a speedy, jarring, relentless trip through the heart of Ghostland. At the very least, if we are talking straightforward «psychedelia», ʽSleeplessʼ has to be at the very top of the genre when it comes to King Crimson tackling it (to clarify: Fripp's «mathematical» approach to music-making is not what I would typically associate with classic psychedelia, but every now and then he and his pals fuck with your mind on a more atmospheric, aural-painting level — ʽSleeplessʼ, to me, seems like one of the few KC tracks that could have successfully been covered by other artists, because it is less dependent on Fripp's unrepeatable idiosyncrasies).

Next to these achievements, the second side of the album, although less «accessible» by itself in layman terms, actually seems somewhat more traditional — in fact, its would-be conservatism is indicated by the title ʽLarks' Tongues In Aspic, Part 3ʼ given to the last track. Even if they are now a completely different unit from what they used to be, that instrumental shows clear melodic and structural proximity to the original ʽLarks' Tonguesʼ (particularly Part II), as if Fripp had suddenly woke up and remembered that the thread binding together the different stages of King Crimson has to be thickened, or people will think of the name King Crimson as usurped by out­siders. Nevertheless, for all its pragmatism, ʽPt. 3ʼ is still great fun: not nearly as hell-bent as the 1973 recordings, but just as kick-ass, and with an electronic / industrial cloaking for the new age. Also, for all its avantgardism, the main riff is surprisingly poppy in nature — hummable, danceable, and more bent on strict musical discipline than terrifying atmosphere.

Indeed, even the album's heaviest track, ʽIndustryʼ, is not so much brutal and scary as it is just... adventurous. I have seen somewhat indifferent fan descriptions of the track as a special effect show without too much substance, and while this may be technically correct, it should not take away from the cold and relentless power of the main groove (a flawless musical depiction of the slow and complex pulse of a giant robotic factory), around which Fripp and Belew weave an atmosphere of musical gaseous clouds, fumes, sparks, and coolant leaks (turning it into a veritable musical antipode of ʽNuagesʼ, the heavenly-psychedelic instrumental that closes the first side). But it would be hard for me to imagine the track as a subtle-symbolic artistic condemnation of the ongoing mechanization-robotization of society — this is more about the frightening, yet exciting marvels of technology than about any menace stemming from it. After all, these guys love technology, and occasionally, they even anthropomorphize technology: ʽDig Meʼ, a song whose broken, twisted, and perverted riffage makes me think of a Captain Beefheart influence, is Belew's sentimental ode to a rusty old car, somewhat moving in a strange Belewable way. How­ever, its somewhat forced marriage of an anthemic pop chorus ("I'm ready to leave...") to the almost atonal, disorienting verses may not be to everybody's liking.

If there is one single downer to all of this, it is only the realization that all of these songs, quite literally, would become far more presentable, energetic, tight, and impressive in concert: chances are high that after hearing the versions of ʽLarks' Tongues In Aspic, Pt. 3ʼ and ʽSleeplessʼ on Absent Lovers, you will never want to go back to the studio originals again. In fact, while King Crimson have always excelled live, I would hypothesize that in no other era of their existence, before or after, would their studio creations seem so pale and fragile compared to a great night live. Quite possibly, this was due to the fact that the recording process had become even more dependent on testing out all sorts of technological gadgets, only a few of which they were able to take with them onstage — and had to compensate by putting a bit more muscle to it. But if you really love technological gadgets, and appreciate the New Wave era more for its collection of peculiar and unusual sonic textures than for its innovations in the realms of melody and harmony, then the Discipline trilogy might just be the culmination of all things you were looking for — and Three Of A Perfect Pair the, er, apex of that culmination. It does everything there was to be done, completes everything that could be completed, and totally justifies Fripp dismissing the entire band soon afterwards. Besides, given all the surrounding circumstances, I am not sure it would have been a good idea to keep up a King Crimson going through the mid-to-late Eighties; perhaps it was safer even for somebody like Fripp, with his generally high immunity to musical diseases, to sit this one period out.

King Crimson: Beat

KING CRIMSON: BEAT (1982)

1) Neal And Jack And Me; 2) Heartbeat; 3) Sartori In Tangier; 4) Waiting Man; 5) Neurotica; 6) Two Hands; 7) The Howler; 8) Requiem.

General verdict: Not a lot of progress here, but the band manages to stay sufficiently in touch with their own past and the musical future to keep things interesting.

The worst that could be said about the early Eighties lineup of King Crimson is that, unlike any previous lineup of King Crimson, this particular quartet never managed to progress far beyond the formula once it had been established. While both Beat and Three Of A Perfect Pair un­doubtedly have their share of great songwriting moments, most of the time they seem to be taking stately strolls across territory that has already been meticulously staked out and explored. Perhaps such was the price for maintaining, even for a short while, the unity of four immensely talented people, each of whom had his own well-carved stylistic preferences: in such a configuration, disrupt the «disciplined» balance even a little, and everything might fall apart (which it eventually did anyway, but at least the Belew-Levin-Bruford lineup made it without leaving a single genuine artistic dud in their footsteps).

Nowhere is this continuity and stability more evident than in the opening angular guitar lines of ʽNeal And Jack And Meʼ which seem to be picking up from exactly the same spot where ʽDis­ciplineʼ had left us (I had a bootleg CD edition once that packed both albums on the same disc, and I almost failed, upon first listen, to notice that the first LP had ended and the second one had begun). If a better musical equivalent of the «if you like this, you will definitely like this...» tagline exists, I have yet to locate it. But without the element of surprise, it is obvious that Beat could only compensate by being able to further refine and polish and expand all the details pre­viously invented on Discipline — and I am not sure of its ability to do that.

The title of the album was allegedly inspired by Jack Kerouac, or, more accurately, the up­coming 25th anniversary of the publication of On The Road — hence a lot of subtle and unsubtle refe­rences to the Beat movement in the song titles that you can easily look up on Wikipedia if you are not an expert on the movement yourself. However, it would be hard to imagine a Fripp-led band to simply produce a musical tribute to anybody, much less a bunch of beatniks, and so the word here refers to multiple things at once — the musical beat, of course, which these guys were now taking to new heights, and even the ʽHeartbeatʼ, which happened to be the title for the album's only single, one of the poppiest things this lineup ever did, and even accompanied with a musical video to boot (most of which consisted of mugshots of Adrian looking at sexy ladies: believe it or not, even in King Crimson people sometimes continue to have sex drives).

From a certain point of view, this makes Beat a conceptual album, but it is hard to concentrate on the meanings and artistic implications behind the concept when the actual music walks this odd thin line between innovation and stagnation. The only composition on the album that does not have a direct stylistic predecessor on Discipline is the closing number, ʽRequiemʼ — but that is because its direct stylistic predecessors hearken back to an even more distant past: Fripp's and Belew's solos here, largely improvised and set to an old Frippertronics loop, are reminiscent of Robert's improvising style that he had worked out with the 1973-74 lineup, while the rhythm section, instead of finding itself locked into a tight groove as it usually does, seems on the verge of falling apart throughout the track. It is essentially King Crimson's equivalent of the Stooges' chaotic ʽL.A. Bluesʼ from Funhouse, except that this time the chaos is being brewed by seasoned professionals who typically pride themselves on order and discipline. It is perhaps not so sur­prising that it was the argument over this particular track that nearly brought the band to a pre­mature end in mid-1982.

That said, there is almost nothing on Beat whose «second-hand» or even «third-hand» nature would make the composition in question unendurable or unenjoyable. Perhaps the band does occasionally stutter on the poppier elements: ʽTwo Handsʼ is one of their lesser ballads, a mood piece similar in style to ʽMatte Kudasaiʼ, but less precisely shaped up and without any mind-blow­ing tricks such as Belew's heavenly guitar tone (he does play a fairly cool «Morse-code» style guitar solo). But ʽHeartbeatʼ, on the other hand, is an insanely catchy pop classic; it is often written off by fans as a cheesy attempt to infiltrate the commercial market, but whoever really wants to get into this era of King Crimson should always remember that Adrian Belew is one of those rare guys who have equal respect for all things avantgarde and all things pop (just look at his solo career), and be ready to embrace both of these sides on the same album. Besides, in a way ʽHeartbeatʼ is only reintroducing the same intertwining notions of starry-eyed romanticism and melancholic desperation that were a part of King Crimson's art from the very beginning: with a bit of an effort, I could even imagine Greg Lake singing "I remember the feeling of the rhythm we made, the rhythm we made..." with the same visual images in mind that he may have expe­rienced while recording ʽI Talk To The Windʼ, no matter how much musical distance actually lies between these songs. A bit of sorrowful tenderness never hurt a KC record.

Of those tracks that, like, actually mean business, my personal favorite is ʽSartori In Tangierʼ, for two special reasons: (a) Tony's Chapman stick part is fabulous — doom-like bass minimalism at its finest; (b) Belew has some major fun introducing Afro-Arab motives into the Crimson sound and dragging them through his array of filter effects. Both of these things deepen and perpetuate the KC mystery just a teeny bit beyond its usual limits, and I guess we could use more of that, but then I can also understand Fripp's possible reluctance to be pigeonholed into the «world music» trend (but what is a "Sartori", anyway? I realize that it refers to Satori In Paris, but is this just a typo or an intentional contamination with Sartre?). In comparison, odd-rockers such as ʽWaiting Manʼ, ʽNeuroticaʼ, and ʽThe Howlerʼ are more traditional — perhaps a bit more chaotic and a bit more heavy on the whole when compared to Discipline, but nothing we could not have expected from Fripp and his well-worn bag of tricks.

Overall, apart from the «commercial» ʽHeartbeatʼ that would become a regular staple in Adrian's live shows, Beat seems to have become the less remembered part of the early Eighties' trilogy: it has neither the freshness of Discipline nor the concentrated songwriting punch of Three Of A Perfect Pair where, so it seems, the band would lock into a more focused mode of intentionally writing something «for the ages». But the record is still worthy of repeated listens, and with such inclusions as ʽRequiemʼ it actually has a chance of becoming a personal favorite for all those who thought Discipline was too much of a sonic departure from the age of Red — and longed for their old «nightmare fuel» KC to make a glorious comeback. If so, this particular comeback is not particularly glorious, but it does a respectable job of occasionally reintegrating those old red nightmares into the herky-jerky New Wave-like funky sound.