Learning Math from the Crimson King, Part Two
In the second installment of this series, we will cover King Crimson's transitional years between 1970 and 1973. Part one discussed the band's 1969 performance at Hyde Park, which was a seminal moment in progressive rock history. Here, we resume our story immediately after the original lineup's dissolution in December, 1969.
I should also mention that none of the hyperlinks in this piece are essential, but they do lead to some pretty interesting interviews, articles, videos, and other assorted items from my research. Think of them as footnotes.
Also, while this feature was inspired by the idea that King Crimson may have created math rock, that is by no means the focus. If anything, this series is a ongoing retrospective in which I intend to examine the most important developments in King Crimson's history
All set? Great! Let's talk about the band's early growing pains...
Fripp has referred to these tumultuous years in the band's history as "the interregnum", using a term typically reserved for the periods of time between rulers or regimes. This may be an example of Fripp's exceedingly dry humor, but taken in a metaphorical sense, the word implies that the Kingdom of Crimson was in upheaval, without a clear path forward.
The three different incarnations of King Crimson that arose between 1970 and 1971 each produced their own uneven contribution to the band's discography. These albums are not especially relevant to our exploration of King Crimson's musical innovations, though I'm not necessarily implying these are not good and/or experimental albums. Rather, they are evidence of the band's two-year identity crisis. I'll try to briefly sum up my thoughts on each album so that we can move on to more important matters!
In the Wake of Poseidon, which was the first of two King Crimson albums to drop in 1970, feels like an extension of In the Court of the Crimson King. This is evident on its two strongest tracks: "Pictures of a City", which sort of sounds like a slightly jazzier re-imagining of "21st Century Schizoid Man", and the title track, which sounds like a mix of all the other songs on Court. Also worth noting is "The Devil's Triangle", which you may recognize as the band's distinctive cover of Gustav Holst's "Mars, The Bringer of War". The title was presumably changed for copyright reasons.
The second King Crimson album of 1970, titled Lizard, is one of the oddest albums in the band's discography. Fripp once referred to it as "unlistenable", but I just think that Gordon Haskell's vocals make most of the album feel slightly goofy. "Cirkus" is the first track on the album and probably my favorite - the aforementioned goofiness feels like it works in the song's favor. The 23-minute title track is a bit too long for its own good, but it's not without merit. Jon Anderson from the band Yes contributes guest vocals at the start (which are a breath of fresh air...no offense to Mr. Haskell), and there are some solid instrumental sections in the song's second half.
For my money, 1971's Islands is the most consistent album of the bunch. "Sailor's Tale" is a superb slice of jazz fusion - perhaps one of the best songs of the interregnum - and "The Letters" manages to pack several intense and memorable moments into a fairly gloomy tale of infidelity. Both tracks are excellent and among my favorites from that era. Unfortunately, there's nothing particularly interesting about the title track which ends the record. It's a perfectly competent ballad, featuring strong performances by new vocalist Boz Burrell and the bevy of guest musicians on various brass and wind instruments - the song is just a bit boring. However, this doesn't stop Islands from being my favorite of these three albums.
Fripp remembers that "at the beginning of 1970 I felt that everything to be done for the next two years would be wrong but had to be done anyway, to get to the other side. What was on the other side, I didn’t know." His later, more pragmatic assessment is that "Crimson changed its direction and/or personnel whenever a particular musical approach had run its course." While it may seem suspect that such a relatively young band managed to run through four different courses in the span of three years, a more significant change was on the horizon, one that would elevate King Crimson to new experimental heights.
The first relatively stable lineup of King Crimson emerged by the middle of 1972, consisting of Robert Fripp on guitar, David Cross on violin, John Wetton on bass and vocals, and the wild duo of Jamie Muir and Bill Bruford on percussion (Bruford served as more of a traditional drummer, while Muir added "unorthodox textures and atmospherics"). Wetton and Bruford had both left successful bands - The Family and Yes, respectively - enticed by the creative freedom offered in King Crimson. They would find that King Crimson was not what they expected, as the experience was simultaneously liberating and terrifying. Bruford later remarked:
"'Whatever you do before you join King Crimson, would you please not do it when you're in the band?' You're required, really, to develop a new style, if you can, specifically for that group. The implication being that you would play in that way in King Crimson, and in King Crimson alone. In Yes, there was endless debate: 'Should it be F natural in the bass with a G# on top from the organ, or should it be the other way around?' In King Crimson, almost nothing was set. You were just supposed to know."
After about two months of writing and rehearsing, the 1972 incarnation of King Crimson was unleashed upon live audiences beginning at a small venue in Frankfurt, Germany called The Zoom Club. Thus began several months of gigs leading up to the recording of Larks' Tongues in Aspic in January of 1973. For our purposes, we will be focusing on Larks' Tongues in Aspic's instrumental title tracks (designated "Part One" and "Part Two") that open and close the album. These are the purest examples of the band's wild experimentation, and they capture an intensity unfelt since 1969. Fripp later said in a 1995 interview that:
"I wondered more what would have happened if Hendrix had interpreted Bartok's string quartets, or Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring". Hendrix with his power, his distinct style, his cutting edge in a totally different framework. The merging of the Afro-American culture, the blues and jazz, and the tonal harmonic European system. For me, 'Larks Tongue's in Aspic' tried to answer this question."
A quick disclaimer before we jump in: while I encourage everyone to listen to "Larks Tongues in Aspic, Part One" in its entirety at some point in their lives, I also acknowledge that few people have 14 minutes to spare. For now, we will only be listening to a six-minute chunk beginning at around the 2 minute mark:
However, by following the riff exactly as the band plays it, one can also count it as four bars of 3/8 and then one in 4/8: 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-4 (note the extra beat in the last measure).
Both approaches yield the same end result, which is a riff that spans 16 eighth notes. Fun stuff!
After fading into one last chorus, the song arrives at its (and the album's) triumphant conclusion at 5:58. It's a hugely cathartic moment in which Cross, Fripp, and Wetton unleash cascading waves of 32nd notes, creating a harmonic effect that lies somewhere between baroque music, a car revving up its engine, and black metal. Bruford and Muir invoke jam section from "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part One" by hitting every drum and cymbal at their disposal. The final minute of this song feels like a musical explosion, which I suppose is an apt descriptor for this lineup's creative output.
We'll end with some words from original King Crimson member Ian McDonald, who left the band back in the winter of '69 to form a short-lived prog band with fellow Crimson alumnus Michael Giles. From what I can tell, this wasn't a particularly lucrative venture, for McDonald then went on to become an assistant editor at music publication NME. In early 1973, McDonald was tasked with reviewing his former band's latest album. He had this to say:
"This album embodies a creative reinterpretation of what a conventional rock-group should sound like in the studios, a tour-de-force of timbre and rhythm that, in the days of synthesizers and electronics, single-handedly reinstates credibility to the natural sound."
The textures and time signatures are certainly impressive in their own right. What is even more astounding is this album's place in King Crimson's history. One must remember that the 1972 incarnation of the band was a completely fresh lineup. Aside from Robert Fripp, who remains as the only consistent member in the band's 50 year history, the men who recorded Larks' Tongues in Aspic were, in the words of David Cross, "five musicians carrying with them their qualities and gifts and still trying to find a way of welding it all together into one distinct personality.” It might be a stretch to call Larks' a "debut album", but as the first album by this particular lineup, it remains a remarkable achievement.
While we're discussing both Sabbath and Crimson, there are a few items that I'd like to bring to your attention. The first is an excerpt from a 1991 interview. Here, Fripp answers a question about King Crimson's connection to heavy metal by telling a story about seeing Black Sabbath perform (possibly at the Whitsun Festival):
"'Schizoid Man,' for me, was intelligent heavy metal. It was very very hard to play (in its time - technical standards have come forward now, of course). It was so hard to play, and it was so terrifying. In early 1970 I saw Black Sabbath doing Paranoid (and this is without in any way criticizing Black Sabbath - they were excellent in their field), and it didn't frighten me. And I had thought that this new breed of music, with Black Sabbath, would viscerally affect me in the same way that, for example, 'Schizoid Man' did. And I was not moved in the same way."
It's strange to think that Black Sabbath's self titled album - a heavy metal milestone - was released a mere four months after In the Court of the Crimson King. It's even stranger to think that Robert Fripp may have been a fan of Black Sabbath (though I'm not surprised that Fripp, of all people, would prefer his own music over others').
In any case, I wasn't able to find similar remarks about King Crimson from Black Sabbath, but I've always thought that there were nods to both "21st Century Schizoid Man" and "Mars" on Sabbath's 1971 song "Children of the Grave":
One could also argue that the first of these two licks is a slight reworking of "Into the Void" from the same album, but I'll let you be the judge of that!
A Few Reminders
You should start with part one if you haven't read it already. Background knowledge about the band and their Hyde Park performance will be extremely helpful!I should also mention that none of the hyperlinks in this piece are essential, but they do lead to some pretty interesting interviews, articles, videos, and other assorted items from my research. Think of them as footnotes.
Also, while this feature was inspired by the idea that King Crimson may have created math rock, that is by no means the focus. If anything, this series is a ongoing retrospective in which I intend to examine the most important developments in King Crimson's history
All set? Great! Let's talk about the band's early growing pains...
1970-1971: The Interregnum
Following a successful but incredibly trying American tour, drummer Michael Giles and mellotron/wind player Ian McDonald were the first to leave the band, followed by bassist/vocalist Greg Lake (who agreed to record a few vocal tracks before jumping ship to the newly-formed Emerson, Lake, and Palmer). The only remaining members were guitarist Robert Fripp and lyricist Peter Sinfield, with new saxophonist and flutist Mel Collins rounding out the skeleton crew. Until 1972, no other musicians would perform in the band for more than a single album.Fripp has referred to these tumultuous years in the band's history as "the interregnum", using a term typically reserved for the periods of time between rulers or regimes. This may be an example of Fripp's exceedingly dry humor, but taken in a metaphorical sense, the word implies that the Kingdom of Crimson was in upheaval, without a clear path forward.
 |
| Robert Fripp in the studio in 1971 |
The three different incarnations of King Crimson that arose between 1970 and 1971 each produced their own uneven contribution to the band's discography. These albums are not especially relevant to our exploration of King Crimson's musical innovations, though I'm not necessarily implying these are not good and/or experimental albums. Rather, they are evidence of the band's two-year identity crisis. I'll try to briefly sum up my thoughts on each album so that we can move on to more important matters!
In the Wake of Poseidon, which was the first of two King Crimson albums to drop in 1970, feels like an extension of In the Court of the Crimson King. This is evident on its two strongest tracks: "Pictures of a City", which sort of sounds like a slightly jazzier re-imagining of "21st Century Schizoid Man", and the title track, which sounds like a mix of all the other songs on Court. Also worth noting is "The Devil's Triangle", which you may recognize as the band's distinctive cover of Gustav Holst's "Mars, The Bringer of War". The title was presumably changed for copyright reasons.
The second King Crimson album of 1970, titled Lizard, is one of the oddest albums in the band's discography. Fripp once referred to it as "unlistenable", but I just think that Gordon Haskell's vocals make most of the album feel slightly goofy. "Cirkus" is the first track on the album and probably my favorite - the aforementioned goofiness feels like it works in the song's favor. The 23-minute title track is a bit too long for its own good, but it's not without merit. Jon Anderson from the band Yes contributes guest vocals at the start (which are a breath of fresh air...no offense to Mr. Haskell), and there are some solid instrumental sections in the song's second half.
 |
| A full-page add for Islands in the UK newspaper Melody Maker |
For my money, 1971's Islands is the most consistent album of the bunch. "Sailor's Tale" is a superb slice of jazz fusion - perhaps one of the best songs of the interregnum - and "The Letters" manages to pack several intense and memorable moments into a fairly gloomy tale of infidelity. Both tracks are excellent and among my favorites from that era. Unfortunately, there's nothing particularly interesting about the title track which ends the record. It's a perfectly competent ballad, featuring strong performances by new vocalist Boz Burrell and the bevy of guest musicians on various brass and wind instruments - the song is just a bit boring. However, this doesn't stop Islands from being my favorite of these three albums.
Fripp remembers that "at the beginning of 1970 I felt that everything to be done for the next two years would be wrong but had to be done anyway, to get to the other side. What was on the other side, I didn’t know." His later, more pragmatic assessment is that "Crimson changed its direction and/or personnel whenever a particular musical approach had run its course." While it may seem suspect that such a relatively young band managed to run through four different courses in the span of three years, a more significant change was on the horizon, one that would elevate King Crimson to new experimental heights.
1972-1973: On a Lark
 |
| The 1972 band in the studio |
The first relatively stable lineup of King Crimson emerged by the middle of 1972, consisting of Robert Fripp on guitar, David Cross on violin, John Wetton on bass and vocals, and the wild duo of Jamie Muir and Bill Bruford on percussion (Bruford served as more of a traditional drummer, while Muir added "unorthodox textures and atmospherics"). Wetton and Bruford had both left successful bands - The Family and Yes, respectively - enticed by the creative freedom offered in King Crimson. They would find that King Crimson was not what they expected, as the experience was simultaneously liberating and terrifying. Bruford later remarked:
"'Whatever you do before you join King Crimson, would you please not do it when you're in the band?' You're required, really, to develop a new style, if you can, specifically for that group. The implication being that you would play in that way in King Crimson, and in King Crimson alone. In Yes, there was endless debate: 'Should it be F natural in the bass with a G# on top from the organ, or should it be the other way around?' In King Crimson, almost nothing was set. You were just supposed to know."
After about two months of writing and rehearsing, the 1972 incarnation of King Crimson was unleashed upon live audiences beginning at a small venue in Frankfurt, Germany called The Zoom Club. Thus began several months of gigs leading up to the recording of Larks' Tongues in Aspic in January of 1973. For our purposes, we will be focusing on Larks' Tongues in Aspic's instrumental title tracks (designated "Part One" and "Part Two") that open and close the album. These are the purest examples of the band's wild experimentation, and they capture an intensity unfelt since 1969. Fripp later said in a 1995 interview that:
"I wondered more what would have happened if Hendrix had interpreted Bartok's string quartets, or Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring". Hendrix with his power, his distinct style, his cutting edge in a totally different framework. The merging of the Afro-American culture, the blues and jazz, and the tonal harmonic European system. For me, 'Larks Tongue's in Aspic' tried to answer this question."
A quick disclaimer before we jump in: while I encourage everyone to listen to "Larks Tongues in Aspic, Part One" in its entirety at some point in their lives, I also acknowledge that few people have 14 minutes to spare. For now, we will only be listening to a six-minute chunk beginning at around the 2 minute mark:
The song's first movement (consisting of some soothing kalimba, or "thumb piano") ends with a shower of bells and chimes courtesy of the Bruford-Muir percussion tag team, followed by a staccato violin riff from David Cross. Fripp's electric guitar prowls around the periphery, humming with distortion. Together, they create a sound remarkably similar to that of Holst's "Mars", right down to the jagged rhythm (still quintuple time, but in 5/8 rather than 5/4) that underpins the song's ominous main theme. The comparison doesn't stop there. At the climax of this initial buildup, there is a startling volume spike as the band erupts into a earth-shaking 7/4 riff . If "Mars" mimicked the sound of marching, this is an artillery strike. Above the huge, metallic power chords and stomping percussion, Fripp's overdubbed guitar leads (which are noticeably absent from the live recordings of the era) scream like low-flying jets. The second iteration of this riff - with Muir's bursts of static, Fripp's howling solos, and Wetton's brief but righteous bass fill at the end of the third measure - may be one of the heaviest passages in King Crimson's studio discography. It's all slightly terrifying, even after one has heard it dozens of times before.
The promised "Bartok meets Afro-American music" moment arrives at 4:57. Fripp cranks out a deranged, undulating riff as Bruford, Muir, and Wetton lay down a knotty 7/8 groove. The contrast between Wetton's funky, largely pentatonic basslines and Fripp's dissonant arpeggios creates a "chromaticism [that] defies harmony and shoots beyond anything Crimson had done before." Whereas the break in "21st Century Schizoid Man" locked the entire band into a highly focused, synchronized pattern, the mutant jazz-fusion of this third movement is willfully unhinged, to the point where the improvisational jam beginning 6:18 somehow feels structured in comparison. That's saying a lot considering that the jam section is ninety seconds of Bruford and Muir hitting every single object in the room as Wetton and Fripp attempt to out-shred each other on their respective instruments.
In six short minutes, "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part One" bridges the gaps between past, present, and future. The complex yet intuitive rhythms of folk music, the calculated dissonance of Bela Bartok, the guitar pyrotechnics of Jimi Hendrix, and the metallic crunch of Black Sabbath meet in stunning musical synthesis. Fripp and the boys had created a progressive rock chimera, the likes of which had never been heard before - and this isn't even counting the second half of the song.
Unfortunately, we won't be discussing the lovely violin and percussion interlude that follows or the melodic rephrasing of the second movement's theme. Instead, we're going to jump to the end of the album's B-side, where we will find the second title track. "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part Two" could arguably be called King Crimson's first true math rock song. It is a much more digestible track than its predecessor, mostly due to its more regimented structure. Nonetheless, this is a beast of a song, distilling all of the aforementioned influences into a denser, more compact package:
In six short minutes, "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part One" bridges the gaps between past, present, and future. The complex yet intuitive rhythms of folk music, the calculated dissonance of Bela Bartok, the guitar pyrotechnics of Jimi Hendrix, and the metallic crunch of Black Sabbath meet in stunning musical synthesis. Fripp and the boys had created a progressive rock chimera, the likes of which had never been heard before - and this isn't even counting the second half of the song.
Unfortunately, we won't be discussing the lovely violin and percussion interlude that follows or the melodic rephrasing of the second movement's theme. Instead, we're going to jump to the end of the album's B-side, where we will find the second title track. "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part Two" could arguably be called King Crimson's first true math rock song. It is a much more digestible track than its predecessor, mostly due to its more regimented structure. Nonetheless, this is a beast of a song, distilling all of the aforementioned influences into a denser, more compact package:
"Larks Tongues in Aspic, Part Two" doesn't quite match the machine-gun intensity of "21st Century Schizoid Man", the crushing heaviness of "Mars", or the barely-controlled chaos of its sister track that started the album, but what the song lacks in obvious acrobatics it makes up for in consistency. It follows a fairly straightforward progression, beginning with two "verses" and "choruses" that blend together multiple sections of "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part One". The song's main riff alternates between the choppy quintuple meter of its predecessor's second movement and the purposeful dissonance of the third movement (now in an easier-to-manage 4/4). It's easy to hear this riff's influence in subsequent experimental and progressive music from bands like This Heat, Slint, The Jesus Lizard, Don Caballero, Porcupine Tree, Botch, and The Dillinger Escape Plan (and even if there isn't a direct throughline, my mind always goes back to "Larks' Tongues" when I hear these).
The chorus then builds around a cyclical pattern, echoing the introductory violin riff from "Part One" and, by extension, Holst's "Mars". Its swells in pitch and volume, toying with the listener each time it returns to its original state. When the song eventually does segue back into the main riff around the 1:50 mark, Bruford and Wetton have a little fun at Fripp's expense, teaming up for a few synchronized fills that threaten to derail their stalwart guitarist's playing.
The song's requisite curveball moment happens around 3:42, when Fripp hammers out a menacing heavy metal riff. Bruford and Wetton briefly interject with the song's main theme, then stop, then join back in to mimic the rhythm of Fripp's guitar. As Cross shreds away on his violin, the rest of the band lurches along to that monster riff. This particular section is a great introduction to polyrhythm, as there are multiple ways of counting it. One can stretch the riff across two bars of 4/4 by counting "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and".The chorus then builds around a cyclical pattern, echoing the introductory violin riff from "Part One" and, by extension, Holst's "Mars". Its swells in pitch and volume, toying with the listener each time it returns to its original state. When the song eventually does segue back into the main riff around the 1:50 mark, Bruford and Wetton have a little fun at Fripp's expense, teaming up for a few synchronized fills that threaten to derail their stalwart guitarist's playing.
However, by following the riff exactly as the band plays it, one can also count it as four bars of 3/8 and then one in 4/8: 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-4 (note the extra beat in the last measure).
After fading into one last chorus, the song arrives at its (and the album's) triumphant conclusion at 5:58. It's a hugely cathartic moment in which Cross, Fripp, and Wetton unleash cascading waves of 32nd notes, creating a harmonic effect that lies somewhere between baroque music, a car revving up its engine, and black metal. Bruford and Muir invoke jam section from "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part One" by hitting every drum and cymbal at their disposal. The final minute of this song feels like a musical explosion, which I suppose is an apt descriptor for this lineup's creative output.
Conclusion
In December of 1969, no one knew what would become of King Crimson. The band's future became even more uncertain following the "interregnum" period of 1970-1971, during which Fripp seemed to cycling through musicians (and ideas) at an alarming rate. Thus, Larks' Tongues in Aspic wasn't so much a return to form as it was the birth of a whole new era for the band. In the previous installment of this feature, I mentioned that Fripp views King Crimson as "a learning process" and "a way of doing things". Larks' Tongues established a new method, and with it, a new sort of madness.We'll end with some words from original King Crimson member Ian McDonald, who left the band back in the winter of '69 to form a short-lived prog band with fellow Crimson alumnus Michael Giles. From what I can tell, this wasn't a particularly lucrative venture, for McDonald then went on to become an assistant editor at music publication NME. In early 1973, McDonald was tasked with reviewing his former band's latest album. He had this to say:
"This album embodies a creative reinterpretation of what a conventional rock-group should sound like in the studios, a tour-de-force of timbre and rhythm that, in the days of synthesizers and electronics, single-handedly reinstates credibility to the natural sound."
The textures and time signatures are certainly impressive in their own right. What is even more astounding is this album's place in King Crimson's history. One must remember that the 1972 incarnation of the band was a completely fresh lineup. Aside from Robert Fripp, who remains as the only consistent member in the band's 50 year history, the men who recorded Larks' Tongues in Aspic were, in the words of David Cross, "five musicians carrying with them their qualities and gifts and still trying to find a way of welding it all together into one distinct personality.” It might be a stretch to call Larks' a "debut album", but as the first album by this particular lineup, it remains a remarkable achievement.
Bonus Track
Remember how I mentioned Black Sabbath earlier? According to some apocryphal accounts, the two bands may have performed together at the 1970 Whitsun Festival, though it seems that folks may be conflating this show with the 9th National Jazz, Pop, Ballads & Blues Festival that was held the previous year in the same town. I don't know how audiences would be able to survive hearing both "21st Century Schizoid Man" and "Black Sabbath" at the same festival without spontaneously combusting.While we're discussing both Sabbath and Crimson, there are a few items that I'd like to bring to your attention. The first is an excerpt from a 1991 interview. Here, Fripp answers a question about King Crimson's connection to heavy metal by telling a story about seeing Black Sabbath perform (possibly at the Whitsun Festival):
"'Schizoid Man,' for me, was intelligent heavy metal. It was very very hard to play (in its time - technical standards have come forward now, of course). It was so hard to play, and it was so terrifying. In early 1970 I saw Black Sabbath doing Paranoid (and this is without in any way criticizing Black Sabbath - they were excellent in their field), and it didn't frighten me. And I had thought that this new breed of music, with Black Sabbath, would viscerally affect me in the same way that, for example, 'Schizoid Man' did. And I was not moved in the same way."
It's strange to think that Black Sabbath's self titled album - a heavy metal milestone - was released a mere four months after In the Court of the Crimson King. It's even stranger to think that Robert Fripp may have been a fan of Black Sabbath (though I'm not surprised that Fripp, of all people, would prefer his own music over others').
In any case, I wasn't able to find similar remarks about King Crimson from Black Sabbath, but I've always thought that there were nods to both "21st Century Schizoid Man" and "Mars" on Sabbath's 1971 song "Children of the Grave":