King Crimson - Red

Released - October 1974

Genre - Progressive Rock

Producer - King Crimson

Selected Personnel - Robert Fripp (Guitar/Mellotron); John Wetton (Bass/Vocals); Bill Bruford (Drums/Percussion); David Cross (Violin); Mel Collins (Saxophone); Ian McDonald (Saxophone); Mark Charig (Cornet); Robin Miller (Oboe)

Standout Track - Starless

Red, the final album by the band that can truly be said to still count as King Crimson (in years to come a band under that name would re-emerge, but it's difficult to think of it as the same band) was actually the second of the band's albums I ever heard, after their iconic debut In The Court Of The Crimson King, and has long been vying with that classic for the top spot as my favourite Crimson album. In The Court... invariably always wins out in the end, but as the band dwindled to a halt in 1974 they managed to create an album that gives that earlier record a serious run for its money. Like a number of prominent prog musicians in '74, guitarist and de facto band leader Robert Fripp perhaps caught wind of what way music was headed, and was beginning to show interest in other projects. After the effective "reboot" of Larks' Tongues In Aspic in 1973, King Crimson was already a very different band from the jazz/classical/psychedelic beast they had been in 1969, replete with Medieval and classical imagery. They had become something far more weirder and more dangerous, incorporating weird, free-form violin solos into the mix as well as punishing guitar riffs and strange sonic textures. The next step had been Starless And Bible Black earlier in 1974, an album similar in tone but lacking as many truly great songs (although the mind-blowingly complicated "Fracture" is one of Crimson's finest songs).

Violinist David Cross, who had been a key element of some of the weird new sounds on the previous two albums, departed the band before doing much work on Red (his only contribution here is on the improvised live take "Providence,") effectively reducing King Crimson to a core trio of Fripp, bassist and vocalist John Wetton, and former Yes drummer Bill Bruford. As a result, the ideas within Red end up being far simpler than on the last couple of albums. Although horns and woodwinds are used sparingly on the songs (curiously, with founding member Ian McDonald, not involved with Crimson since 1970's In The Wake Of Poseidon, and another former member, Mel Collins, each contributing saxophone), the focus is kept squarely on the taut, rumbling bass of Wetton, the clattering drums of Bruford and, most prominently, Fripp's always savage and weird-sounding guitar effects. While prog has always been about musical invention and the incorporation of unusual sounds and ideas, I've always had a sense with Fripp around the time of Larks' Tongues In Aspic and Red that he's one of the few prog musicians, along with perhaps Peter Gabriel, to have a keen interest not just in musical experimentation, but in actually playing with sound itself in order to create something genuinely strange and unsettling. He had already undertaken a mammoth experiment in how to play with the sound of his guitar playing on (No Pussyfooting), his collaborative album with Brian Eno in 1973, and here he continues to incorporate a range of weird and alien sounds, from the almost synthesiser-like buzzing that laces "One More Red Nightmare" to the rubbery resonance of the note that opens "Fallen Angel."

The music is generally a sort of jazzy, freeform hard rock replete with menace and danger. The opening title track is a relentless instrumental that switches through a number of complicated time signatures and features a number of different guitar overdubs from Fripp. "Fallen Angel" starts out as a deceptively pretty tune, Wetton's always unusually strained (though not unpleasant to listen to) vocals crooning through a genuinely lovely tune decorated with cornet and oboe before the final few minutes pick up into a more ferocious and characteristically dangerous coda. "One More Red Nightmare," the only actual song (as opposed to instrumental) of the 1973-74 incarnation of Crimson to not feature lyrics by former Supertramp guitarist Richard Palmer-James, is allegedly about John Wetton's fear of flying, and opens with a high-tempo, jazzy tune that Wetton has a huge amount of fun belting out. Again, its final minutes involve a repeated, savage guitar riff over which McDonald's and Collins' saxophones warble and squeal.

What follows is another example of one of King Crimson's bad habits, which is the inclusion of extended supernumerary tracks involving nothing but quiet, tedious, mind-numbing improvised instrumentals. Improvisation can often be a huge virtue and a gateway to truly intuitive creativity, but only when anchored to a genuinely compelling musical idea whereas Crimson have a habit of just saying "Right, let's go for it" and seeing if something good can be conjured from literally nothing. "Providence" is highly reminiscent of the tedious instrumental segment of "Moonchild" on In The Court Of The Crimson King, and is essentially eight minutes of violin scrapes, guitar noodling and the odd percussive clatter. Not even interesting enough to be engaging. Thankfully, things pick up again at the end with one of the finest songs in King Crimson's discography. Fripp dusts off the timeless Crimson Mellotron one last time for a slow, mournful intro over which his distorted guitar weeps out a pretty riff. Halfway through this funereal song, after Wetton's meditative vocals, comes one of the most infuriatingly brilliant guitar solos of all time, in which Fripp manages to eke out several minutes' worth of soloing using only one note, in a passage that builds in intensity and threat until exploding into a breakneck cacophony of a conclusion that's as angry, troubled, mad and frightening as anything else Crimson ever recorded, and a fitting end to this stage of their history.

"Providence" aside, it's by far the most consistently brilliant and inventive and engaging album the band had made since In The Court... and only slightly falls down in comparison for the fact that this time it's coming from a band where some of their ideas feel familiar and is less of a sensational bolt from the blue as their debut was. It has all the mournful melancholy of "Epitaph," all the threatening intensity of "21st Century Schizoid Man" and all the grandiose drama of "The Court Of The Crimson King," but never feels like it's retreading ground as Fripp's visionary mind and ear for unusual sound keeps things feeling endlessly inventive. After Red, Fripp soon decided to call it a day with King Crimson, claiming he had no interest in the stardom afforded by fronting a high-profile rock band as he felt it was detrimental to his doing the work he wanted to do as an artist. Although he attempted to generate further record deals for an ongoing version of King Crimson consisting of Bruford, Wetton and McDonald but not him, that offer was rejected by his managers and he decided simply to abandon King Crimson "forever."

For the next year or so he would continue working on less high-profile and more eclectic musical projects that furthered his artistic explorations, such as another ambient collaboration with Eno entitled Evening Star. In the late 70s, after "retiring" from music for a few years, he then became a much sought-after session musician, playing for the likes of Bowie and Peter Gabriel, before eventually the new ideas and sonic inventions of art-rock and post-punk bands in the late 70s like Talking Heads seemed to renew his interest in being part of a rock band. Eventually, of course, King Crimson did return in the early 80s as a very different outfit indeed, one that's difficult to identify as the same band at all were it not for the involvement of Fripp and, for a while, Bruford, but that's something we'll look at another time. The King Crimson of old was finished, and Red is a fine full stop to their glorious musical legacy.

Track Listing:

1. Red (Robert Fripp)

2. Fallen Angel (Robert Fripp; Richard Palmer-James & John Wetton)

3. One More Red Nightmare (Robert Fripp & John Wetton)

4. Providence (Bill Bruford; David Cross; Robert Fripp & John Wetton)

5. Starless (Bill Bruford; David Cross; Robert Fripp; Richard Palmer-James & John Wetton)