The King Crimson studio album poll

re: 90's onward

'Frakctured', 'Elektrik', 'Level 5', 'Dangerous Curves'... might sound fine but they only remind me that King Crimson sort of got into a funk where their original stuff is variations of older songs like 'The Talking Drum', 'Discipline' and 'Lark's'.

And the singing gets worse the farther you get

the funny thing about how all the music starting to sound the same is that I think Fripp has over disciplined himself

xp I've said it before, but CoL is my favourite crimson album, even with belew's awful lyrics (not that I really pay attention to lyrics anyway) and the drum sound. in fact, it's the ONLY crimson album that I can listen to from start to finish without skipping anything. it's so relentlessly heavy and uber-technical that I can't help but give in and drool. that ping-pong guitar thing that threads throughout the album, i.e. belew and fripp playing alternate notes in complex riffs, is really distinctive and disorienting, for one thing.

I know what you mean about the rewrites... larks tongues part IV, anyone? but for me that's not a problem, it's more about the refinement of those old ideas into more pure forms.

I did note that the climactic riff from the title track appears in the improv you'd included here. interesting. and very cool.

thanks again for your efforts...

slightly ot but this clip of pete sinfiled backed by john wetton & mel collins is kinda lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WerDAfRbINM

i have been lurking and just wanted to thank u sparkle motion for the comp -- it's awesome. gonna take me a while to digest it all, but i am excited about it.

At the time, 80s King Crimson got lots of airplay on my college radio station along with other post-punk stalwarts of the day. Certainly in my circle of friends, they were included in the pantheon of music we were listening to. It felt like they were one of the few late 60s/early 70s bands that had reinvented themselves and were just as relevantl and inspired as the rest of the underground. Was that the common perception at the time?

I think a lot of that respect was down to Fripp's New York period in the late 70s when he worked with Talking Heads, Blondie etc. Also of course the collaborations with Byrne, Eno and Bowie.

whoops, strike that second Byrne from the list

C. Lorax: I couldn't eliminate Discipline from the tracklist! That track means so much to me, even after all this time. I remember hearing it and being captivated by how it sounded so alien to my know-nothing ears, and how not-rock-n-roll it was. I loved both of those notions, and probably was ultimately responsible for letting me get into repetitive Terry Riley-esque stuff and more experimental music in general as the years have gone on...

I did have Three of a Perfect Pair on there, but I didn't want too many album tracks from that record, and live versions of same have never really held up to it. Anyway I did want to be fair to later work.

As far as the 90s and onward bands, it's a bit of a mixed bag, and most of the opinions about them expressed previously comport with mine. I still think THRAK is a pretty good album, and the notion of them rewriting old material hadn't become such a drag at that time. I really got into KC right about the time that THRAK was coming out, so it was kind of exciting to hear this mysterious band that was beginning to come back to life, and at least in my nerdy circle of Guitar Player-reading friends, there was a real sense of engagement with the history of KC merging with what sounded like renewed vitality at that time. I was boggled by the double trio notion (whereas now I just think they had at least one too many members--if anyone can distinguish for me the difference between Gunn & Levin at any point in those tunes, I'd appreciate it)... and I was blown away by seeing them live on that tour. So to that extent I wanted to capture some of that on the THRAK-era tracks.

There's more to say but I'm out of time atm....

(x-post) Velko, THANKS for that Sinfield link!! I listened to that solo album when it was new as much, or more, than contemporaneous Crimson, so it's completely bizarre (and lol) to me to SEE him singing it.

this one is even funnier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzoxJT74W0w

CoL and Believe are both albums that I never, ever bother with; I've tried and tried over the years, believe me; and I'm a huge Crimson fan, but most of those records just don't hold a candle to anything that came before.

I really like Beat, it was the first of the 80's albums I purchased myself (although I actually had the other two taped from someone). I'm a big 80's Crimson proponent and think they need to sound more like that if they continue (which seems doubtful right now).

if they continue (which seems doubtful right now).

carrying on with any more Crim activity seems like the worst idea in the world, really.

Apparently Fripp is doing some work with Jakko something or other, the guy behind the KC tribute group 21st Century Schizoid Band and Mel Collins.
As to whether or not they continue with Crim proper, it's a good bet they'll do one more record with the lineup from that last set of shows in '08 (2nd drummer, Gunn out, Levin back on bass/stick). Fripp has more or less said as much just as soon as he gets done suing everyone in the entire world that's done him wrong.
As dubious as I find their present state, a Crimso-less world is a sadder one to me, so I say continue, what the hell.

it's a good bet they'll do one more record with the lineup from that last set of shows in '08

I don't get that impression from his recent diary entries. Guitar Craft is wrapping up and it sounds like he's going to hunker down and write -- his memoirs, I hope.

carrying on with any more Crim activity seems like the worst idea in the world, really.

given that their last two albums proper were easily their strongest since red, I can't support this! not really a fan of 80s crimson, tbh. discipline certainly has its moments, but the rest is just too sleek and shiny for my liking.

I think you're way in the minority with that opinion though.

must admit, I'm kind of amazed the 80s period is so well regarded...

Loudly enjoying Disc 2 right now, thanks again for this compilation!

friend of mine was getting rid of a few Adrian Belew solo albums from the 80s/90s ... SHOULD I GRAB THEM. He said they sucked.

i've been listening to vol 1 and 2 all day long -- LOVE LOVE LOVE. i remember adrian belew as a weirdo with an overbite who wrote songs i didn't like (90s, mostly) and now i get it.

i get it! i love it.

also had no idea they were so deeply jazzy

yeah, that was surprising to me, too!

i'm really familiar with stuff like V5, The Thing, etc. and it totally reminds me of that, only heavier. LOVE!

I think the jazz came from McDonald & Giles in the first part, then Collins & especially Ian Wallace later--Wallace even did the whole Crimson Jazz Trio in his last years--I'm still out on that one.
On my forthcoming live megamix there's quite a bit of the jazzy stuff--Drop In sounds like a more skronky Astral Weeks track, and in The Sailor's Tale Mel Collins actually quotes a bit of Sonny Rollins' St. Thomas...
As I understand it, Fripp ultimately wanted to be able to break away from the jazz-based improvisational structure and try to improv in a strictly rock context, the result being the Larks band.

La Lechera: This "The Thing"?

http://www.rerelease.net/catalog.php?RID=4

Yeah the jazz thing is hitting me too, ties in kinda well with the Return to Forever anthology I've been listening to lately.

i'm talking about the smalltown superjazz the thing
http://www.smalltownsupersound.com/v1/superjazzz/news.php

related tangentially to brotzmann, mats gustafsson, paal nilssen-love (just saw atomic this weekend, it was awesome)

Oh yeah, ok...cool... You should check out that Arni Cheatham record though. If you like this kind of stuff, you'll dig it.

Will do!

COMING INCREDIBLY SOON

MEGAPHONIUM FANFARE: VOLUME ONE

a live extravaganza featuring

VROOOM VROOOM/Coda: Marine 475
Red
Drop In
Improv: Wilton Carpet
The Sheltering Sky
The Sailor's Tale
Improv: Kassel II/Exiles
Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part II
and by request
Starless

....and here's the link

thanks!

ooh, thanks! i've been listening to vol 1-4 pretty much nonstop all week.

brillllllliant. Haven't made it to vol. 4 yet, but 2010 is already the year of Crimson for me ...

likewise
where does high tide fit into this? i realized that the earlier stuff reminds me of them too.

yessss. thanks again!!

It is my distinct pleasure to compile these things. I've had so much fun I could keep going and going as long as the interest is there. For those that have gotten to the live comp, I'm curious to know how it sounds-- I edited the thing together with Garageband to make the transitions between songs seamless and enhance the conceit of a continuous live performance across time/personnel. As with all of them, they play best when itunes is set to gapless playback....

I just listened to "starless" on crummy laptop speakers but it sounds great! I've just had a blast with these comps in general. love em.

but... I got some kind of audio error unpacking the file and the mp3 cuts off 7mins in or so. any chance you could re-up "starless" again?

That's the live starless? I'll reup it (or anything else) when I get home...

yeah, that's the one. (from your last "megaphonium" upload.) thanks!!

btw, as much as I love these comps, they're having the strange side effect of making me go and listen to red over and over again for the umptenth time in lieu of other crimson stuff I haven't explored. which isn't really so strange because it's totally great... but fer instance, I have to give larks' tongues the time it really deserves already.

We were rocking 'Red' at the weekend in the shop and it was finally dawning on me what an absolute stunner of an album it is, gloriously heavy and I was going to pick out the drums to mention but, actually, all the playing is sublime.

I love the bass sound on it. and "gloriously heavy" is otm.

but it's true, everyone is in top form.

Red is tops, no doubt. One thing I think that contributed to the overall sound is that Fripp stepped out of the recording/production process, and since Cross was gone at that point, Bruford & Wetton made most of the decisions re: the overall sound...so what did the rhythm section do? Turn themselves up!

To quote from KC's site:

Bill Bruford recently described the album in just five words: Prescient, short and bass heavy.”

Ok, here's the reupped Starless from Megaphonium Fanfare v.1

http://www.mediafire.com/?mn1tg2r2oxf

Let me know if there are any other probs.

awesome. no probs with that one and thanks.

and I actually never knew that bruford/wetton produced red - hah! makes sense.

also makes me wonder what some of the other albums would have sounded like produced red-style.

Re: High Tide, (xxposts) I haven't heard them (or even heard of them), so I'll give it a try... I did listen to the McDonald/Giles album, cut & released shortly after In the Wake of Poseidon. Apparently the final track, "Birdman" was originally going to be the second side of ITWOP. However it's hard to guess what KC might have done with the material. It's much lighter & poppier than anything KC was up to. The piece would have benefitted from Fripp's hand though, as it's fairly long and musically pretty dull. The rest of the record is at least worth a listen--there's a decent rewrite of Cadence & Cascade, and Tommorow's People is fairly funky- the drum sound is killer.

Listen to Sea Shanties -- to me, at least, some of it sounds a lot like In the Court of the Crimson King (which I bought, btw). The electric fiddling is obvs less jazzy than the skronky horns of KC, but the records came out around the same time iirc. I dunno, they seemed kind of similar in the "inventive/unusual/progressive/heavy rock music of the late 60s" kind of way

http://www.progweed.net/reviews/h/seashanties.jpg
this one!!

cool, I'll check it out.