618 King Crimson - Starless and Bible Black (1974)

Hybrid Live/Studio Album - Progressive Rock

About the Act:

King Crimson were/are a Progressive Rock band from England. They started ahead of the curve in 1968, and many people claim they actually kicked the whole thing off with their first album, "In The Court of the Crimson King." To say they have been influential in the genre is a bit of an understatement. They have been active in short bursts over the years, and with various line-ups, but guitarist Robert Fripp has been the central driving force throughout. They have constantly reinvented themselves over the years, and pushed the boundaries of music in interesting and challenging ways, also challenging the concept of what it means to be a band. For a while they were a loose collaboration of sub-groups (called ProjeKcts) and they currently have a three-drumkit frontline.

While you can definitely hear the influence of other bands and of particular genres and musical styles in their music, then have always been leaders rather than followers. They are one of the most progressive of Progressive Rock bands. All hail to the King.

About the Album:

This was their sixth album. Much of it was recorded live, and is improvisational, but was then edited and enhanced in the studio including overdubs.

My History with this Album:

I have had a copy for several years, and, while it is less familiar to me than some other King Crimson albums, I have heard it several times before and know some of these tracks quite well, in as much as that is possible.

Review:

King Crimson are an acquired taste, which is code for "this is weird". I have a standard statement about weird music, which is pasted in below this review. 

Some bands and musical artists make a living out of one core sound. Bob Marley, Shaking Stevens, Rammstein, Madness, Crazy Frog and so on. Some are known varying their sound, notably David Bowie. Also, King Crimson. If ever there was a band which musicologists could study and talk about different phases, it's King Crimson. Actually, this album is somewhat the start of a long phase that embraces a certain type of improvisation. This is improv that in some ways bears a resemblance to Miles Davis' electric period, and to some elements of Krautrock, and to elements of the Avant Garde classical. Wow, that sentence is as pretentious as an obscure simile. If you feel like I am being elitist, please read my statement on weirdness below. It just so happens I know patches of this stuff.

So, musically, it is complex and intricate. There almost as much discord as harmony here, tonal stuff that probably makes sense to them (but not to me) and some very complex playing with structures and rhythms, and polyrhythms. Sometimes it feels like they start with a few notes/sounds and build up from that structure, adding bit by bit (this is the way in which it reminds me most of Miles Davis). The musicianship is excellent, but particularly technical, rather than dancy or feely, it is head-scratchy music, the sort of music that engages the "hmmm" reflex in me, and makes me refer to Krautrock. There are louder and more crunchy bits but often it is quite ethereal. There are a multitude of sounds in here, and the violin/viola are used really well alongside the guitar, rhythm section and mellotron. 

There are four of them at work here, Robert Fripp (the central figure of King Crimson) on guitar, mellotron and "devices" (probably Frippatronics), John Wetton (later of Asia) on bass and vocals, David Cross on violin and viola and a few other things, and on drums, one of my favourite drummers, Bill Bruford, who also featured at times in that other prog band, Yes.

My favourite little story in the Wikipedia page for this album is about the track "trio". They were improvising, on stage, and Bill Bruford was sat with his sticks in hand, waiting for the right time to come in, which never came. He felt like staying out of it was exactly what it needed. I totally applaud this, and love the fact that he got a composition credit along with the other three on the grounds that his decision was fundamental to the sound of the piece.

There are lyrics on some of the tracks, and these step nearer to the idea of songs. They are about various things (The Devil, commercialism, fame, a Rembrandt painting and others). John Wetton's delivery presents the words as snippets and ideas, and, to my mind, fits well with the music. Of course, I may just be too familiar with it.

It's an album of light and shade, it's definitely not pop. It is challenging at times, and is very "arty" in that it is weird for the sake of it. I enjoyed it, but not as much as some of their albums. It feels disjointed at times. 

7.5/10

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/2Eaep5bQ8I6ygLtzVJ2CWz

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6ogdCG3tAWjoN-P6I6j8vmRfP2JDe4QR

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starless_and_Bible_Black

Re-useable statement on musical weirdness

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Some music is weird. When I am reviewing something that is, I often feel the need to say the same things, and so, this re-useable statement is born.

Quality is a strange thing, whenever I try to get to grips with it, it fizzles away like mist. There are many different qualities we look for in music, some objective, but many are contextual. For music that steps outside the mainstream, an additional quality is added, that of subverting the form. From a pure skill perspective, some modern art paintings could be described as "a child could have painted this" - to which the presumed response could be "Exactly. Isn't that great?". Some of the most influential Avant Garde music deliberately demonstrates what stepping out of convention can sound like. Given the many dimensions of music (form, harmony, melody, rhythm, performance, lyrics, production, and probably more) there are many ways of stepping out of the circle of "normal".

This means that "being weird" can be an easy win. Sometimes unusual music is clearly highly skilled, sometimes it seems to reject the norms of skill also. Where is the boundary between bad and deliberately bad? Is there a boundary? Is it all about perception? Sometimes it seems like artists can do anything at all, and it will be accepted as ground-breakingly subversive, as long as the artist takes it incredibly seriously, almost making people applaud it by force of will. There is a dichotomy here, because in order to have acclaim, the music needs to be accessible enough to enough people to gain that acclaim, while the nature of "being weird" is, by its nature making it less accessible. 

There are some people who seem to deliberately embrace things that are difficult or inaccessible to others - and in music this can be the most challengingly unusual, loud, aggressive, sweary, or nice parts of music. I'm OK with this, but I struggle when they then give the impression that it makes them a connoisseur, a better listener than other people, because they "get" the weird music. I deplore this attitude, and don't think anybody should be looked down on because they don't like Frank Zappa, or Rammstein, or Henry Cow, or Patagonian Nose Flute music, or anything else for that matter. However, I'm not immune to this musical elitism, so if you really like Baby Shark, please don't tell me.

I have found that I like some unusual music, but not all, which makes me wonder what are the qualities I enjoy in the stuff I like. I have no clear answer to this, but I think I am more open to it being unusual if that is not all of the music, so unusual sections in the context of more "normal" music seems to impress me more. Maybe because it becomes clear that the musicians can play well.

At the end of the day, regardless of something being ground-breaking, challenging, subversive, ironic, clever, badly-recorded, experimental, deliberately tasteless or just aggressive, the bottom line is whether I enjoy listening to it. It's all about the listener experience.