The mousy, bespectacled guitar genius and seemingly
indefatigable leader and creative engine behind King Crimson has remained an
enigmatic presence for over 40 years, consistently responsible for some of the
most eccentric, precise and challenging rock music of the idiom. This month
sees Fripp at the helm of two projects, one new and one archival, which just
verify his standing both then and now. First is the King Crimson masterpiece Lark’s
Tongues In Aspic which is one of the jewels of the already impressive King
Crimson reissue campaign. Lark’s Tongues is being issued as a 2 CD or a
CD/DVD package on November 27th or is available now as a super
deluxe 15 disc set including CDs, DVDs and a Blu Ray filled with live shows,
outtakes, surround mixes and videos compiled into an overwhelming monument to
this overwhelmingly monumental album. Released in 1972, Lark’s Tongues
finds one of the great Crimson lineups (Fripp, Bill Bruford on drums, Jamie
Muir on percussion, John Wetton on bass and vocals and David Cross on violin
and flute) at the magical crossroads of youthful creativity and mature
instrumental mastery. This beautiful box set includes every note this
particular band played together and it is a thrilling ride. Lark’s Tongues
has everything that makes King Crimson great; melodic ballads (“Book Of
Saturday,” “Exiles”), long, complicated works with tension-filled buildups and
cathartic refrains (the title track), and the kind of skronky rawk that so many
thick-bespectacled sci-fi nerds fell in love with in the 70’s (“Talking Drum”
and “Easy Money”). King Crimson made the waters safer for thinking man’s music
in the mainstream and Lark’s Tongues In Aspic is as good an example of
this as any they produced.
Robert Fripp has recently produced an album with British
jazz/classical horn player Theo Travis called Follow that shows him in a
much more contemplative but no less experimental mode. Follow is a
series of instrumental duets that have elements of ambient music, new age,
electronic, world and jazz. Fripp, once again, shows he can do it all, playing
thick textural backgrounds for Travis to solo over, or leading the way with his
snakey electric tone and carefully constructing fills. He also revisits his
concept of “Frippertronics” (layer upon layer of looped guitar phrases
culminating in a literal wall of sound) on a song called, appropriately enough,
“1979.” The CD comes with a DVD of surround mixes and video of the duo playing
together in a church. This is far from the rock ethic of King Crimson but is a
beautifully satisfying addition to the Robert Fripp canon and again shows him
to be a master of his instrument no matter what the context.
-by Paul Epstein
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