King Crimson – An Observation by WhiteRhinoTea

A few thoughts sparked off by musician Matt Stevens’ excellent blog post which you can read here: http://mattstevensguitar.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-i-love-king-crimson.html

I can’t disagree with anything Matt says about a band which I’ve held on a pedestal for over 20 years but King Crimson are so much more than a band to me. Crimson music is a whole genre which encompasses influences from ethnic music, 20th century classical, jazz and the avant-garde but places those influences in a rock context. They weren’t afraid to use contemporary music theory and shred with it, incorporating it into their fierce improvisations. While lesser bands were covering classical pieces through Marshall stacks and calling that progressive, King Crimson took concepts like whole tone scales and the minimalism of composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass and created new music forms. Fripp’s vision of what it would be like if Hendrix played Bartok sums up their classic 72-74 period. That incarnation of the band has produced the best music I have ever heard. What is so remarkable about that though is that much of it was improvised. Large chunks of the classic Starless and Bible Black album were recorded live at a concert in Amsterdam and massaged into an album in the studio. Like Matt I heartily recommend anyone to listen to The Great Deceiver live boxset. The improv is nothing short of stunning.

If I was to go into detail about my love of Crimson music this would turn into a book. I only want to echo Fripp’s aphorism that Crimson is “a way of doing things”. I can hear their influence in so many bands of the last 3 decades. When I hear a rapidly arpeggiated guitar chord, a whole tone scale or polyrhythms in a rock context they are sure signs of the influence of the Crimson King. Crimson and Fripp alumni like Trey Gunn or California Guitar Trio continue to make Crimson music. If King Crimson were just a band with changing members they would be doing the usual circuit of retrospective tours. The strength of the band is that Fripp assembles members at the appropriate time when there is music that only a King Crimson band can play. That is why they continued to innovate for over 30 years. That makes it frustrating for a consumer like me who would have loved to see them play live and do an album/tour cycle but the music would not have been so truly progressive and ground breaking whenever they did reassemble.

It is unlikely that there will be another incarnation of King Crimson and one of my biggest regrets in life is that I never got to see them live. The wealth of archive live recordings which are regularly made available by DGM Live makes up for that though. I continue to buy every single release. I have dozens, probably hundreds, of versions of their songs but the terrifying edge-of-the-seat danger with which every Crimson musician has played and the heights of stupefyingly intricate interplay between those musicians means that every one of those live versions offers a different slant on that track. I can think of no other band which took such chances on stage. Sure there are some endearing train wrecks where they prove they’re human after all or overstretch their muse for a few crucial seconds but 9 times out of 10 that muse is right on the money. Some bands feature musicians who improvise solos on their respective instruments. Not many bands had the balls and the sheer talent to improvise whole sections of well-loved songs night after night.

Bill Bruford once said if you want to hear what music like sound like in the future you put on a King Crimson record. Sure enough there are many bands around today who have achieved commercial success while paying tribute to King Crimson. As Matt Stevens quite rightly says, Nirvana’s Nevermind was influenced by the Red album. Nevermind’s producer Butch Vig said that he saw King Crimson live and he thought he’d seen God. That’s how big the impact was on him and even listening to his own band Garbage who enjoyed huge success in the 90s it’s possible to hear that impact being played out. Today we have The Mars Volta and Porcupine Tree who have achieved major success while doffing their hats to KC. That influence will continue as musicians continue to be inspired by Crimson. A few days ago I was musing that the last incarnation of KC created a new music form which has still not been tapped into. From the ProjeKcts (fractalised versions of King Crimson which allowed the musicians to do some research and development without the expectations of the King Crimson moniker) to the last two Crimson studio albums an electronica influence pervaded. The electronic percussion of Pat Mastelotto, mixed with the very un-guitarlike sounds of Fripp’s soundscaping sounds like a rock band playing IDM (Intelligent Dance Music). There is a whole wealth of discovery in that sound which has not yet been explored. Imagine the electronica of Aphex Twin mixed with the innovative rock style of King Crimson. If it’s difficult to imagine such music here’s a concrete example from ProjeKct X, dark electronica with that Crimson touch:

ProjeKct X – The Business of Pleasure / Hat in the Middle

That music is already 11 years old but I don’t hear that style being tapped into yet. It’s challenging music I want to hear and I hope Bruford is right, that gauntlet will be picked up by future musicians.

~ by White Rhino Tea on February 8, 2011.