KING CRIMSON

A Scarcity of Miracles (billed as "A King Crimson ProjeKct") came out in mid-2011. It's quite mellow and atmospheric, especially compared to King Crimson's most recent releases.

It starts off with its title track. After an extended, mellow intro, a relaxed rhythm emerges, and Collins's saxophone is a nice, smooth complement. Jakszyk's voice is strong, and Harrison's drumming provides just the right amount of propulsion. On the downside, this song is a bit on the long side, and that will be a common issue throughout this album. The underlying ideas are strong; they're just stretched out a little too much.

"The Price We Pay" has a new wave feel to it at points, and Fripp's soundscapes add a lot of depth. "Secrets" takes too long to get going, but its second half is strong. Harrison's drumming is restrained but effective, and the harmonization of sax and distorted guitar works very well.

The introduction to "This House" is also overlong, though it does feature very pretty interplay between soundscape textures, wordless vocals, guitar, and sax. Once it gets going, it reminds me somewhat of the gentler moments on The Division Bell. The jazz flavors are nice, but this song is quite drawn out.

"The Other Man" features some interesting discordant stabs of guitar, and I appreciate that textural variation. Levin's bass is impactful, and the percussion is also the most propulsive it gets on this album. Unsurprisingly, this is my favorite cut on the album. The bloat is minimal, and the contrast between the album's overall gentleness and this cut's aggression is smartly balanced.

A Scarcity of Miracles ends on its longest song, "The Light of Day". Even by the standards of this release, the opening is spare. Jazzy guitar licks echo distantly, and Jakszyk's vocals are only minimally-accompanied. This song frequently hints at interesting melodic ideas, but it struggles to fully realize any of these suggestions. The instrumental closing section is dark and imposing, while also being controlled.

Overall, A Scarcity of Miracles is a decent album, but it channels a lot of Robert Fripp's tendencies toward ambient music and airy, jazzy improv. With that in mind, this could have been much, much worse, and if you're looking for something subdued but dark, this is a decent choice.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2024/04/15/deep-dive-king-crimson/

About a year after HWWYHTBHW, King Crimson put out their second full-length album in this configuration: The Power to Believe. It features the same line-up as ConstruKction, but it is considerably better. The album is weightier, and industrial elements are incorporated more fully.

The album's title track is a four-part, 15-minute suite spread across the album. The first of these parts, "A Cappella" is a bit of synthesized vocals, like what we heard on the EP that preceded this album. This leads into "Level Five", a live rendition of which was released ahead of this album on the live EP Level Five. This is meant to act as the fifth installment of "Larks' Tongues in Aspic", and the jagged, distorted guitars call to mind that ancestry. Mastelotto's electronic percussion clicks and stutters anxiously, and the industrial inclusions are well-realized.

A much gentler track, "Eyes Wide Open", follows. This cut ranks among the band's strongest mellow pieces, with Belew's vocal performance being especially effective. Creepy synth-reeds open "Elektrik" before moving into a jittery, industrial instrumental. This track melds the band's '80s era guitar style with more electronic flavors wonderfully.

"Facts of Life" has an extended, creepy intro, but the song proper sticks to this album's usual sound. It's heavy, aggressive, and woven through with little electronic touches. The chorus is catchy, and the instrumental passages are dynamic and exciting.

Part II of "The Power to Believe" is its longest section. It's a slinking, uneasy instrumental with some Middle Eastern touches. Mastelotto gets an opportunity to show off here by deploying a plethora of chimes, gongs, and other percussion instruments. The slow fade-in of "Dangerous Curves" builds tension. Structurally, this piece reminds me a lot of "The Talking Drum". Everything keeps building and building to a sudden, powerful cessation of sound.

"Happy with What You Have to Be Happy With" comes next, and it's one of my favorite (latter-era) songs from this band. It's heavy and groovy, and Belew's vocals are powerful and lightly distorted. His lyrics about songwriting are also characteristically somewhat silly.

The Power to Believe ends with the final two parts of its title track. "Part III" revisits the vocals from "Part I" and mixes them in among ominous, instrumental soundscapes in its first half. The second half is a slow, lurching instrumental that feels like a mix between this band's mid '70s output and some of Pink Floyd's spacier moments. "Part IV" is a quiet, droning piece that once more includes the first part's vocal snippets. It adds a sense of calm finality to this record.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2024/04/15/deep-dive-king-crimson/

In 2002, King Crimson released a new EP: Happy with What You Have to Be Happy With. This release was recorded by the same lineup as ConstruKction, and it was meant to serve the same purpose as VROOOM: to act as a teaser for the upcoming full-length. Two of the songs here would appear on their next album, and there is also one live recording.�

"Bude" is a 26-second intro of synthesized vocals that leads into the title track, which is nearly identical to the version on The Power to Believe.

"Mie Gakuri" is an airy instrumental interlude of wavering synth pads, "She Shudders" is another piece just like "Bude", and "Eyes Wide Open" is a gentle bit of folky jazz-rock. It's a pleasant little piece, and hearing King Crimson unplug for one song is a nice change of pace for the band. An electrified version of this piece appears on The Power to Believe. This is followed by "Shoganai", an instrumental consisting solely of peculiar percussion reminiscent of a gamelan. I like it.

"I Ran" is yet another little synth-vocal piece. This is followed by "Potato Pie", probably King Crimson's bluesiest song. It still has some of that King Crimson strangeness, but it's quite straightforward by this band's standards. This song is decent, but really nothing special.

A live recording of "Larks' Tongues in Aspic (Part IV)" comes next, and this takes up about one-third of the EP's runtime. It is, as expected, a powerful, aggressive performance, but its placement on this disc feels a bit like padding.

The last track here is "Clouds", one final synth-vocal interlude. It's only 30 seconds long, but following a 30-second silence, the hidden track "Einstein's Relatives" begins. (Man, I really do not miss hidden tracks being a thing. CDs have their uses, but unwieldy digital files with a minute of silence in the middle were not fun to deal with on iPod back when I was in high school.) After a brief, sped-up, one-man reprise of the title track, it wanders about rather aimlessly. There are a bunch of disjointed ideas, studio chatter, and general dicking-about. It feels like a piss take, and it really doesn't offer much of interest.

Despite having some good ideas, this is quite the skippable release. I'm annoyed it wasn't available to stream anywhere, so I had to spend a few dollars to buy a CD off Discogs. (This was actually one of four CDs I had to buy (along with VROOOM and ProjeKcts Two and X), but this was the most disappointing of the bunch. This one couldn't even rip properly. And of course as I was formatting this, I found it actually is on YouTube, just with a truncated name that made it easy to overlook.)

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2024/04/15/deep-dive-king-crimson/

Following The ConstruKtion of Light, ProjeKct X (the full quartet of King Crimson, just under a different moniker) put out a full album. Much like ProjeKct Two, it's clear that this music stemmed primarily from jamming and experimentation, but it is notably better than Space Groove. The sound palette is more diverse and earthier, which works to the band's strengths. Heaven and Earth, ProjeKct X's sole album, is overlong, meandering, and generally unnecessary, but it's got some good stuff scattered throughout.

"The Business of Pleasure" is a good, growling intro with industrial flavors. But the next couple tracks each meditate on one not-very-interesting idea apiece. "Maximizer" sounds like it could have been refined to fit in on a proper KC album, and the nine-and-a-half-minute "Strange Ears (Aging Rapidly)" is an alright jam.

There are some fun, wonky ideas in "Overhead Floor Mats Under Toe", and "Six O'Clock" has a good, trudging rhythm. Most of these songs?especially the ones over three minutes long?go on for much longer than they need to, which hampers the enjoyability of this record. There's too much muddy guitar noodling and too many vaguely-electronic beats that go nowhere.

"One E End" is especially electronic, even by this release's standards, and "Two Awkward Moments" is a decent one-minute interlude. "Demolition" dwells on one riff for seven minutes when 90 seconds would have been fine.

The title track, which appeared on ConstruKction, is the penultimate cut. Heaven and Earth ends with "Belew Jay Way". This torpid piece is your typical King Crimson jam, insofar as it hints at something interesting that may happen, but it instead simply lingers for too long without coming to a satisfying conclusion.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2024/04/15/deep-dive-king-crimson/

During the time when the various ProjeKcts were performing and recording, Tony Levin left the band as well, bringing King Crimson to the quartet of Fripp, Belew, Gunn, and Mastelotto. This four-piece began recording their next album in late 1999.

The resulting album, 2000's The ConstruKction of Light, is not King Crimson's best, and even Fripp acknowledged he was unhappy with the results. Somewhat unusually for King Crimson, none of this material had been played live before recording, and the songs feel overly reliant on past ideas.

ConstruKction opens with a song called "ProzaKc Blues", and it's not very good. It's a somewhat tongue-in-cheek blues cut with industrial flavors, and Belew's voice is distorted and pitch-shifted down. Despite Belew's clever lyrics, this song is beyond saving.

The title track harkens back to the band's '80s sound, with Belew and Fripp playing interlocking guitar lines. Overall, this cut lacks any real impact or power, and a lot of it comes off as limp math rock. Pat Mastelotto's electronic drum kit doesn't sound very good, either. Its first six minutes are repetitious, but once Belew's voice comes in, that helps to save the last third of the song. "Into the Frying Pan" is better, channeling some early-to-mid '90s alt rock flavors, but it's also too long.

"FraKctured" began life as a "Larks' Tongues" sequel before Robert Fripp decided it was more of a sequel to "Fracture" off Starless and Bible Black. The opening of this one sounds very similar to this album's title track, though some of the speedy riffing evoke moments in "Fracture". The twinkly, clean guitar tones Fripp and Belew utilize here don't really suit the music very well, and it robs it of any intensity. Mastelotto's snare drum also calls to mind Lars Ulrich's disastrous tone on St. Anger. There's finally some distortion later on in the song. And while it does help with the previous lack of intensity, there's something about this particular tone that is simply unpleasant. It's frazzled and sharp, but more in a "crappy amp" kind of way than a "harsh experiment" kind of way.

Another blues-influenced song, "The World's My Oyster Soup Kitchen Floor Wax Museum" showcases more of Belew's quirky lyric-writing, but the musical backing isn't great. It's a noisy, jumbled soup that fails to make a splash.

What comes next is the 13-minute "Larks' Tongues in Aspic (Part IV)". The jagged riffs certainly call to mind prior entries in this series, but there's a more industrial edge to the rhythm. I can't exactly call it a rousing success. The composition isn't bad, but the tone choices are questionable, especially with the percussion. Its outro features some synths that are uncharacteristic for this band, and this behemoth is beset by a sense of aimlessness.

The ConstruKction of Light ends with "Heaven and Earth", which is credited to ProjeKct X. This piece has an urgent backbone, and I like it a lot. It's a song where repetition and slow, incremental changes are utilized effectively. Its slow, synth-heavy outro is too long, but I'll take what I can get on this album.

In 2019, King Crimson released The ReconstruKction of Light, a remastering/partial re-recording of The ConstruKction of Light. It certainly sounds better, especially in regard to the drums. Mastelotto used an acoustic kit on the re-recorded version, and it helped a lot. However, choices of sounds were only a portion of the problems plaguing ConstruKction; most of these songs just aren't up to the band's usual songwriting snuff. ReconstruKction is a mild improvement, but unless you feel more warmly toward this album than I do, it's really not worth it.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2024/04/15/deep-dive-king-crimson/

In late 1999, King Crimson's collectors' club put out a compilation of outtakes recorded by the band's "double trio" lineup in 1994, titled The Vrooom Sessions. Several of these songs were later reworked or re-recorded for subsequent albums, but there are some neat cuts here. Considering these are not fully-formed songs, I won't dwell on this release for too long.

"Bass Groove" is exactly what it advertises, with the overall atmosphere being dark and moody, and "Fashionable" is funky and could have fit in on Discipline. "Monster Jam" is too long, but it's a great way for the two drummers to show off. Meanwhile, "Slow Mellow" takes its name too seriously and is an incredibly long three minutes. "Krim 3" is fantastic, with a jagged, bouncy groove. (It was later reworked for an Adrian Belew solo release.)�

"Funky Jam" is fantastic, and?wait, I've heard this before! This is the "alternative version" of "Matte Kudasai", isn't it? At least, I thought it was, based on the version of the album I've had on my hard drive since 2010 or so. Was this just mislabeled?

Yes, it was. This is how I found out wherever I got my digital copy of Discipline from had a mislabeled song on it. Well, this is embarrassing. I looked up the real alternate version of "Matte Kudasai", and it's only minimally different from the canonical version. That is to say, I'm still not nuts about it. "Funky Jam" holds up, though, and I'm happy to have some proper provenance on this matter now.

"No Questions Asked" would eventually become "Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream", and an early version of "One Time" also appears here. "Calliope" is weird, bouncy, and too long; but it's fun, and another great percussion showcase. The closing "Booga Looga" has a vaguely Western vibe to it, and it's a decent enough cut.�

The Vrooom Sessions is a pleasant collection. It's far from essential, but it shows a side of King Crimson's songwriting that isn't just endless, airy improvisation.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2024/04/15/deep-dive-king-crimson/

The first of the ProjeKcts to record in the studio was ProjeKct Two, consisting of Fripp on guitar, Trey Gunn on touch guitar and guitar synth, and Belew on electronic percussion. Their sole album, Space Groove, was released in 1998.

Space Groove is a goddamn monster of an album. A 90-minute double album, disc one (subtitled Space Groove) consists solely of the three-part title track. Starting off, curiously, with the 19-minute "Space Groove II", it's a fitting title. There's a decent groove, and it's quite spacey. In a way, it reminds me a lot of vaporwave aesthetics. It's glossy and airy and bears some similarities to Japanese jazz from the '80s. It absolutely drags on for longer than it needs to, but it's not as punishing as I expected an improv-heavy instrumental cut would be. This probably could have been trimmed down to a pretty solid seven-to-ten minute song. "Space Groove III" follows and is a weird, atonal piece that centers guitar synth. It's mercifully short.

Disc one ends with the 17-minute "Space Groove I". Its opening mood is darker and more dissonant, but it still fits well into the overall atmosphere. This song absolutely feels its length, and it's a much less fun listen than Part II, which opened the album. A lot of this movement reminds me of a worse, longer, more aimless, and less satisfying rendition of "The Sheltering Sky".

Disc two, subtitled Vector Patrol, has more manageable song lengths. It's got 14 songs across 51 minutes. That's a lot of music, but there's not going to be such egregious bloat.

"Happy Hour on Planet Zarg" has a peppier beat but comparable sound palette to the last song on Space Groove. The percussion is sort of interesting, but the guitars come off as purposeless. "Is There Life on Zarg?" follows. It's got some nice, warm bass soloing, but this short piece also lacks focus.

This sort of music is very hard for me to write about. It's all instrumental, the structures are loose, the overall sound is similar song-to-song, and I just don't find it that engaging. That's not to say there isn't good music here. "Sector Patrol" is a nice change of pace when it starts, but its quality is reliant on context. On its own, I doubt it'd grab my attention. The playing is all skillful, but it's just not particularly engaging or intentional.

The two-part, 13-minute "Deserts of Arcadia" is a mind-numbing experience that reminds me of "Space Groove". It has some flashes of good ideas, but nothing to maintain its integrity across its runtime.�

After a brief interlude, another long cut follows: the eleven-minute "Escape from Sagittarius A". It starts off fairly heavy (or, the guitars do, at least; the percussion doesn't pack enough weight), and it almost reminds me of moments on Starless and Bible Black. It soon returns to this record's usual ambiance, and it keeps ping-ponging between distorted and airy noodling.

"Return to Station B" marks the end of Vector Patrol, and it's probably my favorite song here (not just because it ends the album). It's got a steady pulse, and this song feels like it might have had a bit of thought put into it regarding structure and drama.

Space Groove is an unfun slog. It's the convergence of several recurring threads in King Crimson's music, and they're all my least favorite ones. It's a wandering, self-indulgent musical masturbation session. None of the music here in isolation is bad, but when taken as a whole, this double album is exhausting and unsatisfying.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2024/04/15/deep-dive-king-crimson/

Coming about six months after VROOOM was the double trio's first full length album, THRAK. THRAK features rerecordings of most of the songs on VROOOM, starting with that EP's title track. It's still a dark, heavy monster that expertly balances delicate clean passages against its stormier moments. "VROOOM"'s second part has been split off into its own song here, "Coda: Marine 475", and it almost sounds like some sort of demented Abbey Road outtake. The subtle hints of psychedelia mesh quite well with King Crimson's prog metal base.

A wobbly, swirling riff kicks off "Dinosaur", and Belew's vocal delivery is strongly reminiscent of David Bowie. More hints of late '60s pop are evident in the melody and chord progressions, and it's a truly unique blend, especially in 1995. The double rhythm section adds an incredible dynamism.

"Walking on Air" has a dreamier feel to it, again expertly blending a vaguely late '60s aesthetic with King Crimson's ever-present experimentalism. This is another strong entry in King Crimson's history of slow songs (though its ending is a hair more dragged out than it needs to be). It's jazzy and warm with a vaguely tropical feel to the rhythm. This piece is followed by the instrumental "B'Boom", which puts the drummers in the foreground over an ominous soundscape. The track features some exciting rhythmic work in its second half, but there's not really enough here to justify this being a four-minute song. It could've been a fun two-minute interlude.

Another instrumental, THRAK's title track, comes next. The guitars interlock with jagged riffs, and the percussion sounds nearly robotic at points (but in a good, sci-fi sort of way). Parts of this song remind me of moments on Red.

"Inner Garden I" is a short, creepy piece that cultivates a sense of foreboding. The transition, then, to the very funky "People" is jarring. It's fun and jumpy with skittering guitar, slap bass, and light percussion. The chorus is catchy and propulsive, but some of the soloing comes off as awkward. Its second half is more atmospheric and lingers longer than it needs to, but the two halves still fit together naturally.

"Radio I" is a 45-second interlude of synth effects that serves no purpose. "One Time", though, has an inviting bassline and a laid-back feel. However, it doesn't amount to much, and it's around here that it starts to feel like King Crimson may have (to a degree) succumbed to the common 1990s curse of including songs that normally wouldn't have made an album in years prior, just because a CD can hold 80 minutes of music. (For the record, THRAK is only about 10 minutes longer than the band's previous longest release, but it's a far better outcome than the obscene bloat partaken in by acts like Rush and Pink Floyd.) "Radio II" is equally as pointless as the first, and "Inner Garden II" doesn't differ in any meaningful way from the first part. It's fine in isolation, but I don't see the point of including the two parts like this.

There's a surprising amount of blues influence to the main riff of "Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream", and some of that late '60s pop sensibility witnessed earlier on the album shows up again, too. The track oozes easy confidence, and the band's ability to plunge into orchestrated chaos is impressive.

THRAK ends on the two-part, nine-minute instrumental "VROOOM VROOOM". The main body of it makes numerous allusions to past King Crimson songs, most notably "Red". The riffs buzz aggressively, and both drummers do a great job at keeping things plowing forward. There's a hard gap between "VROOOM VROOOM" and "VROOOM VROOOM: Coda" which kills the momentum. The coda fades in slowly and has a lurching main riff, but once it gets going, it's able to make up for that disruptive moment of silence.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2024/04/15/deep-dive-king-crimson/

This sextet's first release together was the EP VROOOM, and most of VROOOM would be rerecorded for their next full-length release. This was meant to serve as a music appetizer. It was supposed to whet the music-listening audience's appetite after ten long, King Crimson-less years. Considering the minimal differences between the versions of the songs present on VROOOM and THRAK, I'm not planning to dive into the cuts that appear on both and are effectively the same. Otherwise, I'll just be repeating myself a lot.

"Cage", high-energy 90-second cut. It draws from bluegrass and post-punk, and it reminds me a lot of Primus. I never would have expected this sort of thing from King Crimson, but it works really well.

"Thrak" would go on to be rerecorded for their next album, but the version on here is nearly twice as long as the album version. The percussion steals the show, skittering and scattering as the stringed instruments twist and squeal. It does go on for longer than it needs to, but it's an interesting cut with some direct parallels to the band's heaviest '70s output.

The only other song unique to this EP is "When I Say Stop, Continue". It sounds like it belongs on Starless and Bible Black, and I mean that in the worst way possible. It's a groaning, aimless, meandering instrumental. In the last minute, the drummers establish a good groove, but the guitars and basses continue their caterwauling.

VROOOM is a pretty solid EP. It's utterly unnecessary in light of what came next, but given the context of its release, it's good.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2024/04/15/deep-dive-king-crimson/

King Crimson's next album was 1984's Three of a Perfect Pair. Its oxymoronic title belies the somewhat jumbled nature of its writing, with the two sides of the record having their own themes. Side one (called "The Left Side") features poppier, more accessible music, and side two ("The Right Side") leans more into King Crimson's experimental and improvisational tendencies. (When bonus tracks were added for a CD remaster, they were dubbed "The Other Side".)

Also, the lineup remained the same here. Good job, guys!

Three of a Perfect Pair opens with its title track, and it's pretty typical '80s Crimson. Fripp and Belew play interlocking clean guitar lines that are alternatingly smooth and jagged, Levin and Bruford provide some nice funk, and Belew's vocal performance is strong. For the most part, this piece doesn't stand out among their '80s output, but the synth solo in the middle is wonderful.

"Model Man" is warm and poppy, and it's yet another song I could have mistaken for a Talking Heads piece. "Sleepless" features a distinctive slap bass opening that showcases Tony Levin's skills as an instrumentalist. It's darker and tenser than the preceding cuts, and it was a modestly successful single. This song is a hair longer than it needs to be, but it's solid overall. (Three different and unnecessary remixes are included as bonus tracks on the 30th anniversary remaster of this album.)

"Man with an Open Heart" continues with the poppy trend of the Left Side, albeit with some of Fripp's signature unorthodox guitar chords.

The Left Side ends with eerie electronic sounds on "Nuages (That Which Passes, Passes Like Clouds)", and eerie electronic sounds is all it offers. There's no real progression or build in tension or structure. It just sorta floats along. It sounds like background music for a video game from 1998.

Kicking off The Right Side is "Industry", which starts in a vein similar to "Nuages". This seven-minute piece meanders for its first couple minutes before something of a backbone emerges. As the name hints, the band draws from Industrial music here. The tones are austere, and there's a certain robotic nature to this piece. Unfortunately, the various elements of this song don't ever coalesce into anything noteworthy. It's a lot like many of King Crimson's '70s improvisations, but with a 1980s sound palette.

"Dig Me" has some better development, but it comes off as somewhat slapped-together. The verses feel like they're in a constant state of disintegration, but the chorus is majestic and melodic; the two don't fit together. This is followed by the instrumental "No Warning", and it suffers from aimlessness similar to the two preceding instrumentals on this record. At least Bruford gets a chance to show off here.

Three of a Perfect Pair closes on "Larks' Tongues in Aspic (Part III)". The album cover is meant to be a simplified interpretation of the original Larks' Tongues album cover, and the themes of contrast throughout the album make sense in the context of a sequel. Following a jittery intro, The Right Side finally has something that feels like a real song. The music is tense, energetic, and thoughtful. Somehow, this composition manages to feel like a new wave sequel to the original, and it works shockingly well.

Three of a Perfect Pair is a spotty record. It's also one of the band's blandest. The closing cut is the best of the bunch by a wide margin. There are a couple other decent tracks, but much of this record comes off as disappointingly generic.

Aside from the above-mentioned "Sleepless" remixes, The Other Side bonus tracks include three other experiments. One, titled "The King Crimson Barbershop", is a Tony Levin composition featuring everyone except Robert Fripp doing a barbershop trio. It's goofy, silly, and totally unserious. This is the quintessential super-unnecessary-no-it's-not-going-on-the-album-why-would-you-even-ask-but-fine-it-can-be-a-bonus-track-now-that-it's-been-30-years song.

"Industrial Zone A" is a short instrumental focusing on menacing ambiance. "Industrial Zone B" is a four-minute instrumental with a bit more meat on its bones, though it still suffers from a lack of direction.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2024/04/15/deep-dive-king-crimson/