Quick thoughts on the
new King Crimson live album, Live in Toronto, a 2015 recording
by the new septet, playing a set ranging from “The Court of the
Crimson King” to some new material. This isn't a bad album, but it
is a long way from being a great album. The five albums I got before
this one happened to be:
Delta Saxophone Quartet
with Gwilym Simcock: Crimson! (a mostly covers album of
Crimson pieces)
The Morgaua Quartet:
Atom Heart Mother is on the Edge (a Japanese string quartet
doing prog pieces, including “Red” and “Peace-Fallen Angel
including Epitaph”)
Eddie Jobson: Four
Decades
UK: Curtain Call
Zakir Hussain: Making
Music
... and they're all
better.
The latest incarnation
of King Crimson has abandoned the band's usual approach and gone for
the nostalgia market that dominates the prog rock scene, a market the
band have already targeted with umpteen mega-deluxe collectors'
edition re-releases. In that context, after several
bank-account-busting box sets, this release is value for money, a 2CD
release for just £10.
Some
Crim fans have argued that it's not nostalgia because of magic
reasons to do with Crimson being different. I understand why bands
focus on nostalgia. There's nothing wrong with nostalgia. The
set/track list offers your 'greatest hits', so to speak, of King
Crimson, save for skipping over the 1980s. These are good picks.
There is a little bit
of new material. Ignoring the filler, like the intro soundscape, the
new pieces amount to just “Radical Action to Unseat the Hold of
Monkey Mind”/“Meltdown”. Classic bands are in a bind: dismissed
as nostalgia if they don't play new pieces, but criticised when the
new pieces aren't up to scratch. Well, yes, the same applies here:
“Radical Action...” is generic, Crimson-by-numbers. “Meltdown”
is the better piece and a chance for Jakszyk to bring something of
himself to the role. It mixes a bit of Jakszyk's style with a Crimson
sound. But it also feels a bit unfinished. “Meltdown” could be
compared to UKZ's “Radiation”, but the latter is the better piece
of music and a better piece of Crimson music.
We do get two new drum
trio pieces as well, but neither does all that much with the format.
“Banshee Legs Bell Hassle” is over before its begun. “Hell
Hounds of Krim” bores. Compare One,
the album by Pete Lockett's Network of Sparks feat. Bill
Bruford, for what a multi-percussion piece can do.
By the way, the ever
more boastful and grandiose titles, like “Radical Action to Unseat
the Hold of Monkey Mind” and “Hell Hounds of Krim”, ring ever
more hollow when paired with below-average offerings!
But the core problem
with this recording is a certain stilted, lumpen quality to the
performance. Just in places, but enough that I spent as much time
remembering better versions of these songs than coming back to these
versions. It's the Wetton-era material that seems to suffer most,
like “Red” and “Easy Money”, both lacking bite (compare
Wetton and Jobson on Curtain Call),
although “Level Five” also drags. Some have suggested this
is a result of the band using a click track and the challenges of
keeping the three drummers in sync. If that is the case, it wasn't a
price worth paying.
The inclusion of three
percussionists and of Collins does add a distinct flavour to the
affair and they are sometimes used well, like as on parts of “Larks
1” and “Red”. Collins is good on “Starless”. Yet despite
the unusual line-up, the material is not radically re-worked: compare
what the Delta Saxophone Quartet + Simcock do, or The Morgaua
Quartet.
The band are best on
the material from the first four albums, a reminder at this time of
what Greg Lake could do, but why not just crack out your old 21st
Century Schizoid Band albums if you want to hear Collins and Jaksyzk
play those classics?
What the band does well
is give a sense of unity to the diverse Crimson back catalogue. There
is this almost steampunk sound the line-up brings across piece,
uniting the likes of “Larks 1”, “Pictures of a City” and
“VROOOM”. At best, we get some solid performances: “The
ConstruKction of Light” and “The Letters/Sailor's Tale” stood
out for me.
If the unity of the
band, a certain crispness, is missing, the individuals play well when
considered separately. Jakszyk sings well. I'd single out Levin for
praise, and why he isn't allowed a greater role in coming up with new
material, I don't know.
A great jazz musician
once said that music is a reflection of who and where you are. If
that is the case, then this King Crimson is about Fripp's comfort.
Nothing here challenges our idea of what Crimson can be... which thus
means it misses the whole point of being King Crimson.
I am reacting against
some overly hagiographic reviews of the album and have written more
of negatives than positives. This isn't a bad album. You get some
classic Crimson played by some classic Crimson members (plus a fine
substitute). If you want a more radical deconstruction of old Crimson
numbers, I do recommend the Delta Saxophone Quartet's Crimson!
If you want some '70s classics played with more fire, Four Decades
and Curtain Call are
now available at a reasonable price on iTunes after an earlier
Japanese physical release.
