Island 1974 / Panegyric 2024
If you know how turbulence can be: translated into music, the Eye of Sauron keeps on sending resonant terrors into the ether.
Red:
50th Anniversary Edition
The Omega to the Alpha that "In The Court Of The Crimson King" has been for five decades, “Red” hit the shelves almost five years to the date after this ensemble’s first platter, yet their journey from the twenty-six, or twice-thirteen, letters to the three which could symbolize the number of remaining band members is difficult to fathom in calendar units. Similarly color-coded – verbally and emotionally, not in the artwork way the group’s subsequent endeavors, their ’80s oeuvre would be – and located in the same sector of spectrum as the former, the latter doesn’t have an iota of the former’s wide-eyed awe; instead, the last album the Crims delivered in the ’70s, proffers a cynical squint against menacing radiance, thus bringing the original span of the British collective’s actuality to a glorious close. Here’s the record created to plumb the depths of a person’s psyche: instead of escapism of “Exiles” and “The Night Watch” or the fantasies behind “Lizard” and “Islands” – the eyes of “Red” are, as its lyrics say, turned within.
This KC era’s previous releases, which preceded the ensemble’s slimming down to a trio, might suggest the necessity of a jagged, if not exactly rough, edge for aggressive nuances they laid out next to passages pregnant with serenity, but “Red” led the band to the verge of abyss where seraphs were falling and darkness seemed blinding, allowing only infernal light to seep through the nightmare. That’s why, seeing no space for further development and sensing triumphant climax at the point of no return, guitarist Robert Fripp stopped his entire enterprise in its tracks – the tracks singing bassist John Wetton and drummer Bill Bruford would happily stay on: “Red” meant danger. And emergency too, something the 50th Anniversary Edition of the classic assesses a bit academically – befitting the platter’s status.
However, Steven Wilson’s new stereo mix of the album, as opposed to surround-sound variants on the Blu-ray discs, is merely an alternative, somewhat softer angle of looking at this magnificent edifice, nothing more – unlike David Singleton’s Elemental mixes which, well, single out its ingredients, especially “The Making of ‘Starless'” sequence which exposes the naked madness, or indeed the construKCtion, of the sinister glow that had been slowly deconstructing the band. They went from a quintet on "Larks to quartet on “Starless And Bible Black” and then to a trio, and Fripp couldn’t reduce the line-up anymore: while number three was, as the other King once proclaimed, to get ready and go, even on the red light, two was for the show and one for the money – and Robert, having discovered George Gurdjieff and John G. Bennett’s mysticism, didn’t seem interested in either. As a result, over the course of recording the “Red” tracks, Robert distanced himself from decision-making, calling such an approach “radical neutrality” and perceiving “doing nothing” as a mode in the playing life of a musician, alongside active and supportive roles, where all the action lay. And there’s a lot of action in the songs on display.
As a rule, songs – and three out of the five, holy trinity out of satanic pentagram, “Red” pieces are songs of rare intensity and feverish beauty, so typical for Wetton’s writing – feel bare when stripped of vocals but, as Wilson’s devoid-of-voice versions demonstrate, what these pieces, from “Fallen Angel” onwards, feel like without words is far removed from regular backing tracks. They come across as nigh on unrecognizable – apart from the appearance of riffs and principal melodic lines – compositions, complete and immaculate in their own right. Yes, “Starless” aside, these compositions started life as part of onstage wigouts harking back to 1972 and 1973, and the group would refine and rein in those flights of collective fancy, mirroring the method applied to “Starless” which was sculpted for the platter bearing the song’s title and then taken to the audience prior to getting it chiseled in the studio. That’s why there’s clear logic in hearing two former band members, Ian McDonald and Mel Collins, involved in its spectacular folding of the Crims’ history onto the ensemble’s existence.
The Sturm und Drang of their final stand begins with the titular slice of tightly woven, hot fury, whose blow will not be cushioned by any fiddling with old tapes, yet in the fresh look at “One More Red Nightmare” handclaps and effects are more prominent – as are percussive details which arrive enticingly panned in solo segments of “Starless” before helping to unfurl the deliberate sonic calamity no amount of spellbinding balladry can prevent. Expecting a catastrophe is an important layer of “Providence” as well – and one has to delve into this number in its entirety, rather than dig the album cut, an opportunity offered here to show the full extent of potential peril, including a dirty Mellotron note that, listened to on a car speakers, may cause a major fright of engine malfunction. Still, not for nothing “Providence” landed on the record under the title venturing beyond the name of the place where this piece got preserved for posterity and beyond the wordplay around “improv”: it was the “God’s grace” connotation that was factored in, to contribute to the overall concept, in the choice of the instrumental over, say, equally wild “Cerberus” from the ensemble’s performance in Central Park, their last outing of the ’70s and one of the American concerts stored on a Blu-ray now. But of course, it was also the mesmeric interplay between the core trio, with Cross’ violin elevating their going-off-on-a-tangent sensibilities to a different level of tuneful insanity.
This manic depression is best summarized by the exquisitely filigreed gangland tragedy of “Fallen Angel” in which Mark Charig’s cornet licks offset the trio’s hellishly urbanistic dynamics that combine the calm and the storm and tie them into a knot of time. The knot suspended out of time to render the flash and flame of “Red” eternal.
*****
