SOUNDTRACK: KING CRIMSON-The Elements Of King Crimson – 2017 Tour Box (2017).
The (so far) final Tour Box (although the band is still touring in 2018) is notable for having what might be the definitive collection of live “Lark’s Tongue in Aspic” recordings–Parts I to IV (and more) from different eras.
But that’s disc two. Disc one continues with the sampling of the band’s career.
Disc 1 opens with “Wind.” Although each “Wind” extract seems a tad different. This one is all talking, no wind.” (extract) talking no wind.
Next comes an a capella first verse of “21st Century Schizoid Man.” It’s just Greg Lake singing really loud before seguing into the rest of the song, this time from 2015. It’s a great version.
Continuing like the other boxes, there’s an instrumental edit of “In The Wake Of Poseidon,” which is quite lovely.
This disc has a number of Mel Collins flute improvs taken from various Lark’s Tongue recordings in 2016. Each one is wonderful and I could listen to his flute all day.
Another recording of “Peace,” this time with in a rehearsal that ends with Jakko cracking up because of something that Gavin has done (with lots of bad words bleeped out).
It’s followed by a stellar recording of “Cirkus” from 2016. This is the first time played since 1972 and it sounds much more intense and complex than the version on the previous box.
It’s followed by an abridged instrumental recording of “Islands” and a 2015 live recording of “Easy Money” (complete with sound effects–I loved hearing this live the first time.
“Suitable Grounds For The Blues” is a 2015 rehearsals that ends when someone calmly says “It was Harrison, sir. He made me laugh, sir. He did the drum fill out of Hawaii 5-0 twice.
“The Great Deceiver” from 1974 sounds tremendous and I hope this means they might be busting it out for the 2018/19 tour.
“Asbury Park” is a live recording. It’s a fast and rollicking instrumental edited down to fit nicely with a terrific 2016 recording of “One More Red Nightmare.”
There’s a 2015 rehearsal of “Meltdown” and then a jump to an alternate (instrumental) mix of “Thela Hun Ginjeet.” I normally love these instrumental mixes, but i find that this song really uses the words wonderfully and I miss them.
The only other track from this era is a 1982 recording of “Heartbeat” which is insanely catchy and I can;t believe wasn’t a hit. The disc ends with a 2008 performance of 1984’s “Sleepless” which sounds really 80s (the bass in particular) even though it was recorded in 2008. I’ve often thought that Adrian Belew makes King Crimson sound like The Talking Heads, and that seems to be true with this song.
The disc ends with the intermission and photography announcement from 2016 concerts.
Disc 2 is the Lark’s Tongue disc, but it doesn’t start with it. It opens with 2004’s “Form No. 1” with strings guitars and a Tony Levin groove. Then there’s a version of “THRAK ” from the Thrak sessions.
The disc has several tracks called “Keep That One Nick” which are some early recordings and dialogue. Each one is about 4 minutes long of guitars or drums or the whole band recording primarily parts of LTIA.
When the series starts, we’ve got a
2015 recording of “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part I” followed by a
1974 recording of “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part II.”
after a Nick recording of percussion (in which the drums sound like child’s toys and like Bruford is hitting everything in the studio, they continue the series with a
1984 recording of “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part III.” This is my least favorite Part–I can;t get over how much I’m disliking the 1980s recordings, especially since Discipline is one of my favorite KC albums.
after a recording jam of Part II (keep that one, Nick) there’s a
1999 recording of “Larks’ IV ConstruKction” where you can see the connection to the LTIA series in this song. Then comes a
2003 recording of “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part IV” which sounds great once again.
It’s followed by a 2016 recording of “Level Five” which is sort of an unofficial Part 5 to LTIA.
Presumably these are Fripp’s favorite versions of the series. So there.
The disc and set ends with a radio advert for the Larks’ Tongues In Aspic album because who even knew they made radio adverts for albums. It’s a great piece of history.
I imagine there will be a 2018 box, as the band has taken a few months off and is getting ready to start touring Europe and Japan through the end of the year. And who knows, one more trip back to the U.S. in 2019? Yea, I’d be ready to see them once more time by then.
[READ: February 1, 2017] Multiple Choice
I have really enjoyed Zambra’s stories a lot. As with most of Zambra’s work, this one was translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell and I thought it was terrific.
As it turns out almost half of this book has been previously published: “Reading Comprehension: Text No. 1” (New Yorker, July 6 & 13, 2015) and “Reading Comprehension: Text No. 3” (Harper’s, July 2016). In total, there are three Reading Comprehension texts in the book, as well as a few other types of “test questions.”
The original of this book was called Facsímil, and it uses “the structure and questions of the Chilean Academic Aptitude Test as its organizing principle. Called both a work of parody and poetry, Multiple Choice examines the role of the education system and standardized testing in promoting compliance to authoritarian rule.”
Since this book is set up like test there are 5 parts to work through. (more…)
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