King Crimson: Knife Play (2015)

This is an interesting one... In an effort to create the definitive post Power to Believe Crimson record encompassing what I call Crimson's signature "Blade music" - meaning Robert Fripp's tendency to play dark, modal music with his razor sharp tone, often improvising around a motif - I created what I deem the quintessential blade record: Knife Play. 

Knife Play is culled from two main sources, Robert Fripp and Theo Travis' Live at Coventry Cathedral, which I personally found more Crimson than the current lineup in many ways, along with ProjeKct 6 featuring Fripp with Adrian Belew on drums.  

The main point worth taking home is that this record is meant to be a musical statement in evoking a kind of sensual if almost erotic sense of mystery that I feel is what is lacking from the recent Live at the Orpheum record from the new lineup. Theo Travis' sax and flute against Fripp's dark, razor sharp guitar is something that can't be put in words. The tracks with Ade from ProjeKct 6 are the faster pieces meant to balance off the slow, moody tracks from Fripp and Travis.

I basically wanted to create the sexiest Crimson record ever, bringing the vibe closer to Swans territory with a hypnotic, emotion driven sound that one would associate with post-rock or goth music.  My only dream is that Crimson reforms in a year or two with Michael Gira as the singer and primary songwriter. Just imagining the magic combination of Fripp and Gira gives me chills. They could hire Theo Travis and Swans' bassist (forgot his name) to really give them that edge.  That would be a dream come true.

The art I chose is meant to evoke that kind of mystical decadence that I feel permeates the choice of tracks.

Enjoy.

Track list:

1. The Apparent Chaos Of Stone
2. Persian Blade
3. Duet For The End Of Time
4. Threshold
5. Mission Possible
6. The Silence Beneath
7. The Offering
8. Time Groove
9. Angels In The Roof
10. Queer Jazz
11. End Time

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King Crimson: Starless and Bible Black (Revised Edition) (1974)

So I've been on a Crimson binge lately since the new lineup is currently touring. 

This is an alternate version of the 1974 album Starless and Bible Black with better improvs switched in for the originals. I've always felt that the improvs presented on the original record were some of the blandest improvs of the period. 

The improvs I've chosen I believe show Crimson at their most daring and dangerous: wildly experimental and chaotic - a kind of paranoid, dark, gothic expansion of psychedelia. In many ways I think that through these recordings, Crimson has more in common with bands like Swans, Tool, or the Birthday Party than their progressive contemporaries like Yes and Genesis. For one, there is nothing baroque about Crimson in the slightest as Yes, Jethro Tull, or Genesis were. Crimson is much looser when it comes to composition, often letting raw ambience and emotion come through via noise and chilling tension build-up, something that I feel is more common with 80s goth bands.  

Its no suprise that this lineup went on to influence the likes of Nick Cave, Swans, Black Flag, and later Tool. In some sense, the 1974 lineup Crimson could be seen as the genesis of grunge since the album Red went on to influence Black Flag's My War which in turn provided the musical genesis of both the Melvins and Nirvana. Melvins and Nirvana have also cited Swans as an early influence which in turn were influenced by this very Crimson lineup.

As Bill bruford once said, if you want to know what music will sound like in 20 years, just put on a Crimson record.

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