King Crimson: Islands

KING CRIMSON: ISLANDS (1971)

1) Formentera Lady; 2) Sailor's Tale; 3) The Letters; 4) Ladies Of The Road; 5) Prelude: Song Of The Gulls; 6) Islands.

General verdict: No focus, no energy, no cohesion, too much Sinfield, too little Fripp, and a guy from Bad Company.

I will probably not offend anybody's senses by saying that this album, closing out the first big chapter in King Crimson history, is the least «Crimsonian» album ever made, even if all the tracks on it are still dutifully credited to Robert Fripp. Naturally, this does not mean that it is unrecognizable as a King Crimson album or incompatible with all other King Crimson albums; it is just that it seems to digress very much from the vaguely firm core set of values we typically associate with King Crimson. And, of course, it has to be understood that in 1971, there was as of yet no core set of values associated with King Crimson, simply because King Crimson had only existed for three years as a band, and as a revolving-door band at that. But now that we are in a comfortably located retrospective position, I think it is a fairly safe bet to say that Islands, like it or not, sticks out worse than a sore thumb on Robert Fripp's right hand after ten successive hours of rehearsing ʽDisciplineʼ.

Granted, the band was in really poor shape at the time. The new lead vocalist and bass player, Boz Burrell, was a poor bass player (they had to pick him on emergency notice due to their previous bass player jumping ship all of a sudden) and a half-decent singer, more suitable for tender balladry than adventurous prog-rock. Fripp was still doubling on guitars and keyboards, torn between the two and not doing his best at either. Sales were dwindling, and so was critical and fan interest after they'd failed to up the antes on In The Court twice in a row. Most impor­tantly, there was a growing rift between Fripp and Sinfield on whether the band should go in a harder or softer direction — with a resulting compromise that, as it often happens with compro­mises in art, ultimately satisfied no one.

Like Lizard, Islands is not horrid, but it is even more shapeless. Most of the songs have very little by way of backbone — typically, they are presented as atmospheric pieces, without any memorable main themes and without any inbuilt sense of development. The bulkiest pieces are, in fact, more of a cross between mood jazz and impressionist classical, with heavy emphasis on pianos, saxophones, and woodwinds, exploring a variety of modes and styles: ʽFormentera Ladyʼ putting a folksy / medieval spin on the proceedings, and the title track, with its chamber introduc­tion (ʽSong Of The Gullsʼ), a slightly more baroque one, eventually transitioning into full-on impressionist mode.

Honestly, I do not know what to make of either of them. Notwithstanding some grinning double bass experiments on ʽFormentera Ladyʼ, this is some of the softest and nicest music in the KC catalog, and, frankly, for soft and nice I would rather go to a band like Renaissance, to which this style comes so much more naturally. As a symbolist-romantic crooner, Boz Burrell is even less impressive than Haskell — his singing is generic and stiff, and it hardly feels as if he really liked or understood Sinfield's convoluted imagery. The wordless siren soprano of Paulina Lucas on the first track (ʽFormentera Ladyʼ clearly refers to Sirens) is much better, but at the precise point when the track slips from light to dark mood and the strings, woodwinds, and vocals conspire to make you feel lost and confused in a creepy magical environment, you realize that their touch is just too soft to reach that goal. Like, where's the guitar, man? Why is Mel Collins impersonating Coltrane in the background? Does Boz Burrell ever take more than two notes on his instrument? And why the heck should we even bother when we have, oh, I dunno, Amon Düül II's Yeti, for instance, if we ever feel the need to take a trip through a somber, threatening landscape?

The title track is even more disappointing. It is not that difficult to write a pretty romantic ballad that gradually rises to an epic climax — but apparently not if you are in free-form impressionist mode and, like Keith Tippett here, impersonate a Debussy on tranquilizers. Mark Charig's cornet solo, coming in to take the song towards a crescendo of sorts, is way too lively and disruptive in comparison. I can see where some people might like the effect, but every time I remember that the person responsible for this elegant slop is Robert motherfuckin' Fripp, my hand automatically stretches out to recover the query «Robert Fripp on drugs» from my Google search requests (no, allegedly he never did any, but come on, surely there must have been something... at least a minor sleeping pill addiction, no? really? come on!).

The three shorter tracks in between are a bit more reassuring. ʽSailor's Taleʼ, logically expanding on the Siren theme of ʽFormentera Ladyʼ, is the best of these — a seven-minute jam with some of the record's best guitar work (rather awfully produced, though); you only have to make your way through a couple minutes of more ugly saxes to find yourself in the middle of a nicely brewed Fripp thunderstorm (and the Mellotron support ain't no slouch, either); too bad this particular track could not have made it onto In The Wake Of Poseidon, because, honestly, it sounds much more like a real wake of Poseidon than the inferior ʽEpitaphʼ clone of the same name. ʽThe Lettersʼ is an odd murder ballad that needs more Greg Lake, but also needs to be less reminis­cent of ʽMoonchildʼ in terms of chords and tones. Finally, ʽLadies Of The Roadʼ is really the odd one out — a twisted blues-rocker about roadies, occasionally interrupted by waltzing sections, a song that rather belongs to the catalog of 10cc than King Crimson. (I'm sure Godley and Creme would have taken this one off Bob's hands in a jiffy).

In short, if there was ever a moment of total confusion in the King Crimson camp, this one's it. From pastoral landscapes to guitar thunderstorms to sexist rockers to baroque instrumentals, Islands does it all, and does it all poorly. Most importantly, this does not even sound like a real band getting their act together: more like an overdubbed collage where each musician does his own thing without paying any attention to the others — and it is not even clear what that own thing is in each particular case. In history, Islands has gone down as one of the most poorly rated King Crimson albums, and I have to join the consensus: I cannot imagine the situation where I'd want to reach for even a single one of its songs to satisfy my King Crimson fix. That this version of the (non-)band never survived the ensuing tour was, as far as I'm concerned, a historical inevi­tability — and a blessing for us all. Imagine Boz Burrell and Mel Collins staying in the band, and there'd never be a Larks' Tongues In Aspic. Never!