King Crimson - Larks' Tongues In Aspic

Released - March 1973

Genre - Progressive Rock

Producer - King Crimson

Selected Personnel - Robert Fripp (Guitar/Mellotron/Electric Piano/Devices); John Wetton (Bass/Vocals/Piano); Bill Bruford (Drums); David Cross (Violin/Viola/Mellotron/Electric Piano/Flute); Jamie Muir (Percussion)

Standout Track - Easy Money

Reading back over this blog is interesting in many ways as it helps to retroactively apply patterns and structures to musical history that might not initially be apparent from casual listening. In particular, looking at the types of albums that make the list at certain times provides evidence of when certain cultural shifts took place, and it's interesting to note that 1973 seems to be the year that prog rock, the genre that's obsessed me for years, and one that had achieved surprise dominance of British rock music since the late 60s, begins to lose its grip firm grip. By this stage, the emergence of artists like David Bowie and Roxy Music had been able to deliver rock music that had intelligence and wit and theatricality without the tendency for self-indulgent excess that prog could fall victim to, and perhaps audience's tastes began to waver. It wouldn't be until the rise of punk a couple of years later that prog really became unfashionable, but it's interesting to note that a number of the big prog bands struggled to deliver something of true brilliance in 1973. Jethro Tull and Yes, for instance, having each delivered something of a magnum opus in '72 in the forms of Thick As A Brick and Close To The Edge respectively, struggled to match their achievements. Tull's A Passion Play is a by-the-numbers retread of the structure of Thick As A Brick that lacks all its colourful invention and tongue-in-cheek zest, while Yes foolishly attempted to one-up themselves by recording Tales From Topographic Oceans, a collection of four twenty-minute pieces, none of which has enough good ideas in it to justify ten minutes.

Perhaps this very gradual sea change was something Robert Fripp was aware of. Certainly, it's equally true of King Crimson that when they re-emerged in 1973 it was to deliver something very different to what had come before, perhaps as a deliberate stance against any sense that prog was losing its sense of relevance and importance. The early incarnation of Crimson was dead - Fripp cast off long-time lyricist and collaborator Pete Sinfield and all his other backing musicians and organised the band as a wholly new collective, with bassist and vocalist John Wetton, avant-garde percussionist Jamie Muir, violinist David Cross and, perhaps most curiously, drummer Bill Bruford, formerly of Yes. Bored of the overly complicated nature of working with Yes, Bruford defected to Crimson in order to embrace their looser, more improvisatory approach to music. And the music this new lineup of the band would make would be something wholly new, even for prog fans. With the ghosts of early King Crimson now definitively behind them, and no longer having to fit into the conceptual and lyrical constraints of Sinfield's influence of the band, they felt more comfortable doing things their own way rather than following the same songwriting templates Ian McDonald had set for them back in 1969. No more classically-inspired suites and the like - for the new record, the focus would be on sonic experimentation and free-form, jazz fusion-esque improvisation. Fripp had just finished working on his proto-ambient experimental album (No Pussyfooting) with Brian Eno, so at this point was clearly more interested in playing with the sonic possibilities of music than with writing particularly coherent songs.

And so we get Larks' Tongues In Aspic, the freshest and most weird-sounding prog record in a good year or so, and the most dangerous and strange King Crimson had sounded since In The Court Of The Crimson King. The mood is generally dark and savage and borderline psychotic, with Fripp's brutal, spidery guitar more to the forefront than ever before, and Wetton's fluid basslines and Muir's weird percussive sound collages lending everything a slightly alien and unsettling edge. Muir was a great advocate of using found sounds, and for his contributions would try to create music with anything that came to hand, be it light bulbs or chains or toys. The majority of the resultant album is built around free-form improv-based instrumentals, with three more "conventional" songs nestled in the middle, although "conventional" is a stretch. With Sinfield gone, the lyrics for the three songs to actually feature a vocal part were penned by none other than Richard Palmer-James, the former guitarist and lyricist of Supertramp for their self-titled debut album.

The title track (split into two, although there are few musical parallels between its two parts that bookend the album) kicks things off into gloriously unsettling territory. The slow build of Muir's weird percussive collages, using what sounds like thumb pianos amid a cloud of chirping and chiming, soon climaxes in the explosive roar of Fripp's heavy-metal styled riff. Via monstrously athletic guitar solos and bass solos, the piece continues to play with dynamics from whispering quietness to deafening noise and climaxes in one of the most intense and frightening passages in the band's discography, as David Cross's violin seesaws acrobatically over Fripp's intense guitar work into a cacophony of a finale. It's a truly frightening piece, and one that obliterates any memory of the generally serene and contemplative mood of Islands, heralding the arrival of this newer, rawer and more unpredictable iteration of the band. "Book Of Saturday" is the first regular song on offer, and perhaps the album's low point. Wetton's voice has always been a bit of an alienating factor for me, sounding strangled and uncomfortable. Of course, the band at this point were principally about instrumental work, and Wetton is a wonderful bassist, so it's not too big a problem (though his later work with the atrocious supergroup Asia in the 80s would push his singing to the limit), but it does make the regular songs slightly harder to enjoy. "Book Of Saturday" is fairly slight and forgettable, but what follows is better.

"Exiles" harks back to the classic Crimson sound, throwing a lifeline to the fan cast adrift, opening with a moody Mellotron part adapted from an earlier piece called "Mantra" that the band used to play in the late 60s. The song it leads into is a gentle acoustic ballad that incorporates flute and, Wetton's weird singing aside, has a genuinely pretty melody. It's totally blown out of the water, however, by the phenomenal "Easy Money." It opens with, hands down, the most killer riff Fripp ever came up with, over the slow, squelching, trudging percussion of Muir, the stately bass of Wetton and a chorus of scatted singing that's just effortlessly cool. Much of the song itself is a slow burn build-up back to this opening theme, via a slow, spidery cool groove that Wetton really gets under the skin of to give perhaps his finest vocal performance. After the undoubted highlight that "Easy Money" represents, "The Talking Drum" (which signposts the return to instrumentals) has a lot to live up to, and it's a piece I used to find difficult to love. It recalls the final minutes of "Larks' Tongues In Aspic (Part I)" with its excruciating slow-burn development from silence and the rush of wind, via frenetic percussive trade-offs between Bruford's drums and Muir's more off-kilter percussive effects, all over Wetton's steady bassline and underscored by Cross's meandering violin solo, to a rabid, frantic conclusion that ultimately bursts into terrified squealing that puts the listener in mind of a thousand baby birds screaming.

From there it's right into the brutal riff of "Larks' Tongues In Aspic (Part II)," which abandons the dynamic shifts of the first part and goes for all-out speed and aggression in a jazz fusion-inspired jam redolent of the likes of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, filtered via King Crimson's own wiry and menacing approach to music-making. By the end of it, the listener is left almost breathless - safe for the brief respite of "Book Of Saturday" and "Exiles," there has been no relief from the oppressive, sinister tone of the music, nor from its free-form weirdness and unpredictability. It's certainly a far cry from the band's earlier work, although it does capture the spontaneity and terrifying level of invention of the band's debut album far better than anything else they'd done since. While their work had continued to be exciting and enjoyable, this was the first time since 1969 that King Crimson had managed to sound like true musical pioneers and a force to be reckoned with. Not only that, they managed to do it at a time when most other big prog bands were having trouble maintaining their early levels of innovation and promise.

From 1969 to 1971, Crimson had come to be less of a band and more of a loose collection of musicians to orchestrate whatever ideas Fripp felt like exploring, but this new version of the band managed to work much more like a real band for a good couple of years. Unfortunately Muir, who was such a key part of this album's unusual sound, departed in 1973 due to a "spiritual crisis," meaning Bruford's role on the next album was expanded. Of course, given Fripp's difficult and obstreperous nature, such a role for the band couldn't continue and in 1974 he would temporarily "retire" from music, rendering King Crimson defunct for some time. The immediate followup to Larks' Tongues In Aspic, titled Starless And Bible Black, was similar in its free-form approach and oppressive, menacing tone but struggled to achieve anything as brilliant as on this album, save for a virtuoso guitar showpiece entitled "Fracture" that Fripp has gone on record as saying is the hardest piece he's ever played (quite a statement from such a fiendishly talented guitarist). But it would be followed by Red later the same year, the final master statement the band would make for many, many years.

Track Listing:

1. Larks' Tongues In Aspic (Part I) (Robert Fripp, John Wetton, Bill Bruford, David Cross & Jamie Muir)

2. Book Of Saturday (Robert Fripp, John Wetton & Richard Palmer-James)

3. Exiles (Robert Fripp, John Wetton, David Cross & Richard Palmer-James)

4. Easy Money (Robert Fripp, John Wetton & Richard Palmer-James)

5. The Talking Drum (Robert Fripp, John Wetton, Bill Bruford, David Cross & Jamie Muir)

6. Larks' Tongues In Aspic (Part II) (Robert Fripp)