Celebrating 40 Years Of Rock's Other King

2009 marks the 40th anniversary of many famous things, ranging from the mind-bendingly fatuous (John and Yoko’s bed in) to the truly historic (the moon landings) to the not as good as they used to be (Sesame Street), to the never any good in the first place (Woodstock). But in addition to all of the above, 2009 is also the 40th anniversary of something much less celebrated: a very strange record that only gets stranger with the passing of time, King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King.

Consisting of four skilled musicians plus one lyricist from England’s West Country (among them the now legendary guitarist Robert Fripp) King Crimson enjoyed a rapid ascent to fame and success. The band formed on January 13th 1969; were declared the ‘best band in the world’ by Jimi Hendrix in April; played with the Stones at Hyde Park in July; recorded their first album In the Court of the Crimson King in July and August; released it to great acclaim in October; then played their last gig together on December 14th in San Francisco, having imploded while on tour.

To celebrate the band’s 40th anniversary, ITCOKC has just been re-released in a deluxe, remastered edition. Playing it now, decades after its release, the record sounds ambitious, grandiose, with a majesty bordering on the utterly pompous- it could only have been made by very young men, absolutely confident of their abilities and vision. ITCOKC provides the listener with a gateway into a curious parallel universe where rock is not blues-based but rather European, avant-garde, jazzy, pastoral and apocalyptic. The most famous track is probably 21st Century Schizoid Man, a blistering assault on the listener for its time. My own favorite however is the eponymous final track, which is ominous and foreboding and yet quite possibly about nothing whatsoever- and who can object to such a bizarre clash of meaning and meaninglessness? Not me. ITCOKC is a message from a lost world, where things were cosmic, and the world of popular music was filled with uncharted possibilities.

Audiophiles take note: the sound quality of the new edition (remastered from the original tapes) is excellent, and there is also a 5.1 stereo surround mix on DVD for those in possession of high quality sound systems. As is usual with re-releases there are various bits and bobs tabbed on as extras; however the best bonus is unquestionably the excision of 3 minutes of meandering improvisation from the track Moonchild.

Having disintegrated at the end of 1969, King Crimson went through a dizzying series of personnel changes over the next five years. Thus the second album in this series of anniversary re-releases Red, has an almost entirely different line up from the band’s debut. Reduced to a trio of Fripp (the only constant in the group’s history), Bill Bruford and John Wetton the band had actually ceased to exist when Red was released in 1974 The buzz prior to the breakup was that Crimson were about to achieve Pink Floyd levels of success, albeit with infinitely superior levels of musicianship. Fripp didn’t much care: he had experienced a spiritual awakening and believed the world was ‘coming to an end’.

Gone was all the florid stuff about purple pipers from ITCOKC; this King Crimson had a much darker, more brutal and yet still complex sound. Fripp’s guitar frequently had a harsh, grating quality; Wetton’s bass was incredibly heavy; Bruford’s drumming was jazzy and crisp. And yet in spite of this stripped down quality the record shows King Crimson still searching for new possibilities, exploring the space between jazz, improvisation and some alien form of the then embryonic heavy metal. The album’s finale, Starless is lyrical, melancholic, sinister, the sound of a man alone and adrift in the depths of space. It veers between mournfulness to terror and then back again. It is the sound of a last farewell, a slow descent into the abyss. It is also the rest of the record in microcosm, veering between aggressive assault and more delicate, exploratory passages. Red is one of the best albums of the 1970s. If you don’t own it, you should.

Once again the re-release features bonus tracks plus a 5.1 stereo surround mix; it also includes ultra-rare video footage of the band in action on a French rock show, complete with period visual effects.

King Crimson’s dissolution in 1974 was not final. Fripp returned with yet another configuration of the band in 1980 and since then King Crimson has materialized and dematerialized periodically, whenever- as Fripp puts it- there is music to be played that only King Crimson can play. A man of ferocious personal integrity, Fripp pursues his own path. Rumors swirl that he may reactivate King Crimson next year. If we are lucky, he will: for even after 40 years and nearly as many members the Crimson King sounds fresh, challenging, aggressive and uncompromising. The same cannot be said for any of Crimson’s peers who played at Woodstock, nor alas, for the works of the King’s other great contemporaries Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. Although Oscar is still moderately aggressive, it must be admitted.