King Crimson: Islands - Ultimate Edition (1971)

King Crimson are a favorite of mine, being a band that has gone through many phases and dabbled in or started many genres of rock music, notably progressive rock, jazz rock, art rock, math rock, grunge, new wave, alternative rock, psychedelic/industrial/jazz improvised music and finally alternative metal.

Islands, the fourth studio LP holds an odd position in the Crimson catalog.  Released after the critically loved In The Court Of The Crimson King and before the underground and highly influential Lark's Tongues In Aspic, Islands was an album for a short lived iteration of Crimson.  This 1971 band were the first to tour since 1969 after the dissolution of the original lineup.

Replacing grand symphonic dirges with free jazz rockers and moody chamber ballads, Islands is probably the most schizophrenic record in the Crimson catalog.  The original record began with Formentera Lady, a moody free jazz ballad/jam that set the mystical and loose tone for the record before blasting into the prog/fusion epic rocker The Sailor's Tale, a notable Crimson Classic.

Following this was the anxious death ballad The Letters which was largely inspired by a 1969 unreleased Crimson song called Drop In, which itself was an anthemic, anti-drug rocker. Rather than follow the latter's tone and theme, The Letters takes the basic musical elements of Drop In and transforms the song into a morose and haunting jazz-rock suicide ballad with lyrics penned by Peter Sinfiel surrounding the angst of a jilted lover.

Side two finds Crimson doing an ironic Beatles-esque blues number dedicated to the band's groupies. This is one of the more less-liked Crimson songs by fans as it has been dubbed as sexist.  However I see the hidden irony here and I do appreciate the composition of the piece.  The last two tracks are quiet ballads, one a classical instrumental called Prelude: Song Of The Gulls and the title track which is a soft and pensive end to the album.

Islands is definitely a more introspective record than the jazz/noise explosion of Lizard or the jarring and angular "psychedelic punk" of Lark's Tongues In Aspic.  Here we see Crimson revelling in texture and ambience to more or less good effect.

The problem with the record and why I decided to tackle it for a revisit lies in its length.  As a rather jammy jazz/ballad record, the 40 minute running length does not adequately convey the grand tone the Crimson purports to display.  The tracks being avant-garde are rather lengthy, and so just when you start to get the feel of where the record is going, the tracks switch to a different tone and upset the flow.  Side 2 only has one solid rocker on it while its tail end is made up of lengthy ballads. Because of this, the record feels like it is over too soon.

So in looking at Islands, I knew that I wanted to turn the record into the great free-jazz/art-rock record it was intended to be.  My inspirations for this were albums like Bitches Brew by Miles Davis or Giant Steps by John Coltrane.  If Crimson were intending to make a chilled out, slightly stoned art rock record from the bare bones of what was the initial LP, then I knew I needed to truly fill the album out and extend the jams to properly convey the kind of mystical journey that the concept suggests.

Luckily there is a wealth of material from the 1971 tours that show the band in a much more unhinged and explosive state than on the studio recordings.  ...as Fripp has been oft quoted as saying "Studio albums are a love letter.  Live recordings are a hot date."  This is entirely true with the Islands era, and thus there was no difficulty in finding appropriate material of good sound quality to really flesh the album out as a whole.

The first LP contains the original tracks of Formentera Lady, The Sailor's Tale, and The Letters, however I've added in live sections of Formentera Lady that really showcases Mel Collins' incredible sax playing as well as more quality licks from Fripp before segueing into the studio section of Sailor's Tale.  The Letters comes in third as I felt the transition of mood between Sailor's Tale and The Letters is perfect after the end of the sonic assault.

Following The Letters is a studio track performed by the 1969 band called Groon (renamed Groon: Phaze I) which was released as a single after In The Court was released.  The first LP closes off with a great live free jazz jam of the song Get Thy Bearings by Donovan.  This segues into Summit Going On, an improv, before the lengthy calm ballad of Pharaoh Sanders The Creator Has A Master Plan. I felt the middle of the album's experience should be the most relaxing, like a calm journey at sea or a lucid dream through the cosmos as the artwork suggests.

The second LP starts with Ladies Of The Road beginning the disk with a bang and waking our senses after the soothing Creator Has A Master Plan.  This is followed by A Peacemaking Stint Unrolls, an unreleased studio jam left off the album that served as the basis for Lark's Tongues In Aspic.  As my version of Islands is a double album, there is space to put it back. This transitions abruptly into Groon Phaze II, the extended improvised version of the original studio jam with amazing sax playing by Mel Collins and a drum solo by Ian Wallace.

After all this tumult comes the transitional track Prelude: Song Of The Gulls which transports the listener to the warm beaches of Islands, the calm end of a lenghthy cosmic journey.

Track list:

I:

1. Formentera Lady
2. The Sailor's Tale
3. The Letters
4. Groon (Phaze I)
5. Get Thy Bearings
6. Summit Going On
7. The Creator Has A Master Plan

II:

1. Ladies Of The Road
2. A Peacemaking Stint Unrolls
3. Groon (Phaze II)
4. Prelude: Song Of The Gulls
5. Islands


mp3 320 kbps part 1, part 2