King Crimson

important work in color

1969: In the Court of the Crimson King. 1970: In the Wake of Poseidon * Lizard. 1971: Islands. 1972: Earthbound. 1973: Larks’ Tongues in Aspic. 1974: Starless and Bible Black * Red. 1975: A Young Person’s Guide to King Crimson (Collection) * USA. 1981: Discipline. 1982: Beat. 1984: Three of a Perfect Pair. 1986: The Compact King Crimson (Collection). 1991: Frame by Frame (Boxed Set) – The Abbreviated King Crimson (Collection). 1995: Thrak.

Included in A Young Person’s Guide to King Crimson was a booklet that detailed the band’s troublesome history. The book contained reprints of a hefty amount of bad reviews the band had received in their career up until 1975. One of Robert Fripp’s strengths has been his ability to stare down his detractors and go his own way; and King Crimson’s singular output is yet another example disproving the axiom of unimaginative musicians everywhere that nothing new can be done under the sun (conveniently excusing them from trying).

King Crimson often seems more an ideology than a musical combo. A case in point: songs for the interesting, perhaps good, album Starless and Bible Black. "Lament," a tale about a rock musician fallen on hard times – a familiar story – isn’t told with rock and roll instrumentation. A slow song, starting with delicate, classical-sounding, violin/guitar strains, "Lament" suddenly dives into a stunted staccato time signature, and, towards the end, as the protagonist sings about "dancing the night away," the band breaks into a bass/drum pattern that suggests a parody of dance music.

The only song with a good lyric, "The Night Watch," is about a famous painting. In this case the band creates a contemplative mood as the narrator ponders the picture’s meaning. The quasi-classical melodies waft in and out. Contemplation isn’t an emotion most rock and rollers try to depict. "The Night Watch" is successful, but contemplation is a rather cold passion and the listener’s experience may reflect the chill. The homophobic first line of "The Great Deceiver’ is misguided and recalls the sexism of early King Crimson tunes like "Ladies of the Road" and "Easy Money." The lyric is vague and attacks a rather unimportant target with flowery imagery. A great musical flourish, a tempestuous riffing flurry, starts the song by gives way to a stuttering beat that carries the rest of the tune. Fripp and company are high on concept, but it’s not the kind of concept that satisfactorily weds word and music.

The title track, "Starless and Bible Black," is an instrumental unencumbered by a strained lyric. The song may be a study in randomness. Robert Fripp’s guitar solos don’t seem to be played - they seem to be unspooled from his fretboard. Because he maneuvers with little repetition, his guitar lines twist and soar and drift out into space never to be heard from again (oddly enough, on the live albums, he plays these solos more or less the same way). Throughout the song, the bass player, violin player and drummer shift meter, change time signatures and change key. Direction is never too obvious which makes the less random bass patterns that come a third of the way through "Starless" almost feel like a hook. Bill Bruford’s drumming with King Crimson is always phenomenal; he has an endless repertoire of approaches and a beautiful, personal drum sound. "Starless" is admirable, possibly a grandly designed piece of music. And so is "Fracture," the tune that ends the album. The convulsive explosion that distinguishes this track hits your body hard – the dynamic of the playing is awe-inspiring, the chordal/riffing structure purely original. The tune remains impressive. At their best, King Crimson prove that art for art’s sake may not be such a bad thing after all.

But, at their worst, questions are raised.

How explain Robert Fripp’s long term relationship with Peter Sinfield whose overwrought lyrics plagued the first four albums? Sinfield was nowhere near as talented as Robert Hunter with the Grateful Dead, for instance. And compared to Keith Reid’s humorous, intentionally pretentious, yet cannily sophisticated lyrics for Procol Harum, Sinfield’s work looked like clumsy mimicry. In fact, Sinfield wrote, all the time, as badly as Bernie Taupin wrote occasionally. When Fripp dumped Sinfield he choose an equally misguided lyricist to replace him. Although it’s well-known by now that musical talent and literary talent are at odds with each other, there is a question of taste involved in Fripp’s choices that may be reflected in the music somewhere. Crimson’ lyrics and music may be meant to reflect each other ironically and there are times when Fripp’s musical landscapes seem ominously existential, or impassively evil. Maybe not.

Is Fripp’s total avoidance of the cliché (an avoidance so extreme that anything that’s been done before, even once, falls under that heading) a healthy choice or the sign of a stubbornly obsessive mind?

As a auteur there is much that is consistent about Fripp. When McDonald and Giles went running from the band after the badly received American Tour promoting King Crimson’s first album, In the Court of the Crimson King, they were quick to say "It’s his band, not ours." The contributions on Crimson King that are not Fripp’s – "I Talk to the Wind" and Moonchild" – are unFripplike: the former in its jazz-light flutiness, the latter in its depiction of nature as a playful, frolicsome force. On In the Wake of Poseidon, Fripp is alone at the helm and henceforth his darkly colored, slow-moving, unorthodox experiments will be the order of the day. That is until Adrian Belew joined the party on 1981’s Discipline. Fripp’s songwriting is so low-key that Belew’s musical enthusiasm and verbal playfulness distort Crimson’s music – it becomes less cerebral, more accessible. Discipline is one of Fripp’s clear successes and it’s an explosively radical album. If Fripp was letting his questionable standards slide a bit on simple songs like "Matte Kudasai," and tunes from Three of a Perfect Pair ("Man With and Open Heart," "Model Man"), Belew makes up for it by articulating Fripp’s ideas better than before. The albums that followed Disipline - Beat, Three of a Perfect Pair, and Thrak – hearken back to earlier Crimson traits: they have moments but are spotty and uninvolving.

If nothing else, Friipp has proven conclusively that rock/pop forms do not have to be constrained by the 4/4. Other rock/pop musicians have proven the same thing, but none so thoroughly. Brian Eno’s quote (Cult Rockers, Wayne Jancik/Ted Lathrop, Fireside, 1995 to Q’s Robert Sandell) may be relevant: "Avant-garde music is sort of research music. You’re glad someone’s done it but you don’t necessarily want to listen to it."

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