The King Crimson studio album poll

though he never really answers it, does he? how Frippian to take a simple question and drone on for twenty minutes without formulating an answer.

He'll take it all the way to Dutch elm disease, but won't answer the question! On one hand, kudos for protecting the identity of his most magnificent maiden; on the other hand, I don't even honestly want to know what's on the other hand.

Is he always this hilarious?

Yes! Well, he tries to be. Sometimes the dry wit is too dry.

how Frippian to take a simple question and drone on for twenty minutes without formulating an answer.

He loops a few notes then solos for a while -- interviewfrippertronics.

That dude is and always has been hilarious.

Not to derail Fripp sex talk but after listening to the new Lizard again I had to really up my rating for it quite a bit. Totally changes the album around and makes it so much more powerful and disorienting than the muddy original mixes. Major props to Wilson for bringing so much of it out.

If you haven't read it already you'll find Wilson's comments of interest:

"One of the first things I said to Robert when we started talking about the 5.1 mixes was that I wanted to do Lizard because for me, that’s always been an album that was too big for stereo to contain. There’s so much going on in that record.

I’ve always felt that if presented in the right way, I could make a case for this being the most experimental rock record ever made. It’s extraordinary what they’re doing on this album. In terms of fusing free-jazz with progressive rock for me there’s almost no parallel and yet it seems to an album that is overlooked by jazz fans and progressive rock fans alike.

When I was doing the Battle of Glass Tears, there were sections of that where the solos are all blowing free jazz and on the master tapes there are multiple takes. To try and figure out that spaghetti took a lot of focus and attention. That’s definitely the hardest remix I’ve done so far because the master tapes were in such a terrible state. There appeared to be no logic about where things were on the tape. I mean it was as though they were trying to make an album with 48 tracks but they only had 16. It was very ambitious.

That solo at the end of Lizard (Prince Rupert’s Lament) is just one take. There’s no edits in there. That’s 2 1/2 minutes and the notes he’s pulling out - the feeling, the sustain, the emotion. I mean if I do a solo I’ll do about 50 takes and edit the best bits together and it might sound good at the end. But just to step up like that, without any effects - just a bit of distortion and echo. Amazing."

it was as though they were trying to make an album with 48 tracks but they only had 16

Yeah, that's very much the feeling I got.

I mention in my review that it is still not clear if the band really knew what they were doing on this album, and in some ways I think Robert's comments do echo that. It seems like he just turned everyone loose and just went with whatever transpired. That's what makes it different than the other KC records, there's very little (if any) restraint on it at all. But I do think this new mix makes everything work much better. The way all the music comes crashing down on "Happy Family" is one of the most powerful moments of the album and it sounds so much bigger here.

that solo at the end of 'lizard' is really amazing, very much akin with noisier, shorter solos like on Baby's on Fire, which it was roughly contemporaneous with. really overlooked part of the crimson catalog. I hated this album the first time I heard it for some reason, now I think it and Islands are missed jewels.

Agreed on all counts. One other thing that occurred to me was KC going into the studio really digging Miles Davis, but instead trying to latch onto Bitches Brew they start unpacking Miles +19 & Sketches of Spain. Further down the road of course, Fripp ultimately wanted to do what jazz could do but 'strictly in a rock context', which makes all the sense in the world.

I'd also like to hear the rest of this 40th anniversary series and redo this poll, I suspect the results will be somewhat different.

I would like to hear the remasters of Lizard and Red and really all of these, which ones have the best extra stuff? The Crimson King package is nice, and has extra stuff, like a DVD I've never watched. Maybe I should watch it.

Anyway, here is an early MTV Martha Quinn clip also featuring MQ joking about how Robert Fripp sits down, and how funny it is: "watch what it looks like, when he sits down in this couch -- he looks like the incredible shrinking Robert Fripp"
and then finally lots of frippertronic news and then she said he was a guitar genius but his couch was too large for him. (It's toward the end of 6, beginning of 7 min if you want to skip the B52s, which you do not)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86Wa3QJLkFQ

good for her, but does anyone really care about the charts anymore?

I mean CAKE had a #1 album in 2011, and it didn't even really sell that well

whoops, I posted that in the wrong thread

Okay, I just heard the Islands remaster - nowhere near as good as the Lizard one, still kinda lukewarm on it.

The interesting thing is that there is a bonus track which is basically a section of the "Larks 1" jam with some sax on it.

I'm gonna listen to this on my way home.

I decided that I will revise my S&BB review when the 40th edition comes out in a month or two - I was harsher on it than I remembered, and some of the bonus material seems great. Dunno if I disliked it so much because I found it boring or if I just thought they could do so much better.

I may post on Islands later tonight.

Prob don't have it in me to do the whole thing tonight. But dl'd the 40th Anniversary of Islands -- and after a few A/Bs of the two, the stereo remix of the title track absolutely ruins the hushed atmospherics of the original. Too much Mellotron, but more importantly noise gates on the cornet solos that all but eliminates the hissy, analog tape atmosphere in the earlier mix where you could hear players shifting in their seats. That said, I bet this sounds incredible in 5.1 surround sound.

essentially my view on that album is that it would have turned out better had they just not tried to write songs at all. Boz is basically useless. I like "Formentera Lady" but would rather just hear a 40 minute jazz session from these guys.

can't believe anyone would hate on SB&B.

My crimson introduction in the mid 80's was basically: the 80's records, then Court (I was like, "WTF"), and then SB&B, which was the total lynchpin of the entire enterprise to my 14 year old ears. Relistened the other day, i still think it is a better album than Red.

I like Larks best of the Wetton era.

Red is incredible. Larks is great but SB&B keeps stopping for noodles.

I mean take tracks 1, 2, 4 and Fracture and make it an EP ffs.

my problem is that they drew all the improv from a night where they were "off". "Trio" is indeed pretty but they don't really let any of the stuff develop. I dig "Asbury Park" but there's nothing like it on the album. As for the songs, I liked "The Night Watch" a lot more with the original intro, though it is good, but "Lament" kind of feels like filler to be. Love the electric violin on "Deciever" though. Will have to give side 2 another pop

SABB was always my favorite of the era as well. Only the title track doesn't really go anywhere. "We'll Let You Know" is great, and coalesces into a pretty massive groove by Wetton. "The Mincer" is eerie. As noted, "Trio" is amazing. For me, it's the record that feels the most like the way this band must have sounded live.

What "original intro" are you talking about for "Night Watch"? The song is recorded in the studio with a live intro.

Islands is worth it just for "Sailor's Tale" and its incredible guitar solo. In that song you can hear Fripp throwing off the baroque elements of the first KC and cueing up the harsher sound of the Wetton/Cross/Muir years.

What "original intro" are you talking about for "Night Watch"? The song is recorded in the studio with a live intro.

It's different on The Night Watch live disc. I may have to relisten to it now but I could swear it was more bombastic. IIRC the mellotron broke during that performance though which explains why the song cuts off so suddenly. I'm not really sure on any of this but that's what I remember hearing about it.

I spent some time listening to the Collectors Club release of the '98 Nashville Rehearsals--the aborted attempt to make another double trio album--it's predictably a mess, though somewhat entertaining for it. Though there are bits that would show up in Larks' IV & V, the overall sound is surprisingly light--alot of really upbeat pieces, with a surprising amount of tunes that wouldn't sound out of place in an ice skating rink. One track in particular, "Sad Woman Jam" sounds like an outtake from Discipline, kind of cool. But ultimately it's the sound of a band with one too many drummers...you can practically hear Bruford walking out the door...there just doesn't appear to be much room for a second percussionist. Anyway, an interesting curio.

Listened to Islands today for the first time in years. Still love it, and really wish they would have explored a bit more in this 'chamber-jazz' realm. Paulina Lucas, the soprano voice on "Formentera Lady" died last year; there's virtually nothing about it on the net. I need to buy the new remaster stat.

Or I could buy this "WOC" vinyl for $16 on ebay:

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh310/yodelagogo/Kislands.jpg

that's awesome

that was when they reissued it on El Saturn right

Ha! Listened to this all improv recording today too, produced by Fripp. The spacy tinkles piano is nice; the skronkier/plonkier bits and Julie Tippetts' recorder and slide whistle noises are a bit irritating tho.

http://i43.tower.com/images/mm105958326/blueprint-keith-tippett-cd-cover-art.jpg

Listened to Islands today for the first time in years. Still love it, and really wish they would have explored a bit more in this 'chamber-jazz' realm. Paulina Lucas, the soprano voice on "Formentera Lady" died last year; there's virtually nothing about it on the net. I need to buy the new remaster stat.

Also, this is a good piece on the reissue:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=37630&page=1

Ok, just listened to the unedited "Asbury Park" for the first time. Agreed that the loud ass comping from Cross on Mellotron is crazy -- I was like, "Wait, where the hell is THAT on USA?" And I went back and listened to the edited version and, sure enough, it's there very quietly in the bgd. But more to the point: there's a funky jam for the last 3 or 4 minutes of the piece! My brain almost exploded.

I'm liking this.

Sparkle motion, my lizard vivarium is empty, please send me an email as well!

That Ian McDonald excerpt is totally insane. Aside from the, y'know, 'having sex' part, Fripp's sense of humor reminds me oddly of Glenn Gould's...

Oh! Oh!

I just can't agree with it. Islands is still kinda crap. Not unsalvagable, not uninteresting, but just not really a good album.

I can understand that, I guess -- but you can't deny the solo on "Sailor's Tale" and the title track's long coda with the cornet solo.

absolutely - as I mentioned I think it would be much better as just a soft jazz record w/ no songs

If I had a more substantial audio system, I'd love to hear the complete package of this -- the "Road to Islands" and so forth. I think feeling the context for it has helped with my enjoyment of it.

it would be much better as just a soft jazz record w/ no songs

Because of Sinfield's lyrics, or Boz's voice, or...? It would mostly work, except Beatles pastiche "Ladies Of The Road," which fits poorly in this record anyway, but KC was always about juxtapositions. I've listened to "Formentera Lady" three times in three days; never a favorite years ago, but (speaking of juxtapositions) the scratchy cello intro, meeting up with the sort of R. Carlos Nakai Native American flute bits, and especially the glacial sax and soprano voice outro are all just working for me lately.

And the title track is unfuckwithable for me.

That All About Jazz review of the reissue I posted upthread makes a good case for the record -- and for Boz's contributions as well.

Yeah, that was a nice piece. I think I like Boz's voice better than Lake's or Wetton's, just not as bombastic.

It's not really the lyrics or the voice, it's mostly that I just don't think he contributes anything, except maybe on "Formentera Lady". Like I'm imagining the title track without him and it seems much better. Plus I think both "Ladies" and "The Letters" are crap, so maybe those could be replaced as well. If you haven't heard it, check out the Ladies of the Road live set - these guys really could play, they were kind of a jazz-rock nightmare but they had a pretty unique sense of groove and IMO did "Schizoid Man" better than anyone.

jon lewis, check yr webmail

Oh! Oh!

(ty)

Sparkle, have you bought a bunch of stuff from the DGM website? I've been going through it recently and haven't bought anything as of yet, but it seems like a goddamn goldmine of stuff -- with great entries (and comments from fans) about the downloads themselves, what they sound like, the context for them, etc. I'm particularly interested in pulling down some of the Frippertronics concerts.

I just read the Fripp interview on PSF, he's actually a pretty amazing speaker, one of the few really worthwhile interviews I've ever read. Another one I read was Steven Wilson's (different website), who said something pretty interesting, that the reason why neo-prog is so uninspired and forgettable is that it lost its jazz base and therefore became uninspired. I've come to realize that KC's jazz background is really what made them so special. It all made sense here when someone compared '73 Crimson to Can, there's actually some real truth there, and it explains why I love these guys but can't stand bands like Tool.

the reason why neo-prog is so uninspired and forgettable is that it lost its jazz base and therefore became uninspired. I've come to realize that KC's jazz background is really what made them so special

yeah but are you including the 81-4 and post-94 line-ups in that? cos I don't hear any jazz in those line-ups at all and maybe that's why I find it hard to differentiate them from neo-prog

The Post-Red lineups still carry that heritage by who is playing in them--up until the point where Bruford, the jazziest of the bunch leaves the band for good. True that there's no jazz per se but the love of improvisation is evident from the way they write and of course play. The Projekcts, especially, bear this out.

This debate made me think of this interview w Chris Cutler in which he pretty much tears into Fripp:

VM: How do you see British groups such as King Crimson, Van der Graaf, Gentle Giant and Jethro Tull to the progressive music?

CC: Personally, I have to say that I never had much time for King Crimson. I disliked their first album and, apart from a track here and there, didn't find much I cared for on later albums either. To make things harder, they were contemporaries of Henry Cow and we were often pointlessly compared with them (especially Fred Frith who got foolishly compared/confused with Robert Fripp). But we never saw the connection really; they were working in a much narrower musical field than we were. And when they began to make big statements about their originality for improvising (around Jaimie Muir/Larks Tongues time) we found that frankly rather pathetic. But that was their way - after all Fripp claimed to have invented 'frippertronics', which is either a mark of ignorance on his part or outrageous arrogance, since every guitarist 'invented' that obvious procedure. I was not a fan of the other groups you list either, or Yes or Genesis for that matter, the quintessential 'progressive' groups. I don't think we had much in common with any of them. We certainly didn't learn anything from them. I, for instance, would havre to go back to early Zappa, Beefheart, Barrett's Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, AMM, Sun Ra, Coltrane, Coleman, Stockhausen, Schoenberg and so on for influences. And for contemporary bands in the 70's, Magma, Faust, Samla Mammas Manna.

There have been others who have voiced similar criticisms -- Gary Lucas of Magic Band fame wrote a withering review for Zoo World of Larks' Tongues when it came out.

Putting aside the fact that Cutler totally misses the humor in calling it "Frippertronics" (which Fripp has said many times was so-named bc he thought it was funny) the point I feel a lot of people miss is that 70s King Crimson wasn't about AMM-style improvisation or even jazz, really once the Islands band was put to rest -- it was about improvising in a distinctly rock context.

I think that's partly why Jamie Muir--the most obvious connection to the free improv scene--didn't last very long -- Fripp has said he hired Muir and Bruford for the band in part bc no one was the perfect drummer for the band. And once Bruford absorbed Muir's ideas and approach (such as the second section of "Starless"), the latter became kind of superfluous.

To the extent there were outside influences, they were classical composers like Bartok.

Oh, and fuck Henry Cow.