new introductory bit here.

This is a reviews page based on my own collection, which just keeps growing despite itself. If it isn't listed here, it's because I don't own it yet, or I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Also, bother your local "new rock" radio station and make sure they are playing "new rock" and not "Rock the Casbah," which is not new.

note: entries in red text indicate my pick for the artist's best available album. A gold numeral indicates the POPocalypse winner of the year's best album; second- and third-place winners are in blue. Green lettering indicates an obviously exploitative record company compilation without apparent artist input.

King Crimson was formed in the late 60s by Robert Fripp, Ian McDonald and Greg Lake and, alongside the Nice and Yes, were instrumental in popularizing "progressive rock." Their debut release In the Court of the Crimson King is still an album rock staple.

The lineup proved to be short-lived, and soon it was only Robert Fripp guiding the band through a number of incarnations, releasing several quite pretentious records with incredibly long, albeit fabulously played, tracks deriving from complex improvisations. By 1974's fabulous Red, which featured five very heavy jams, the band was a trio of Fripp, ex-Yes drummer Bill Bruford and bassist/vocalist John Wetton. Fripp had already split the band by the time the album was released. Bruford did live work with Genesis, John Wetton joined Roxy Music and, later, formed UK. Fripp began a solo career and, over the next six years, performed session work for such acts as David Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Peter Gabriel, Daryl Hall and the Roches.

In 1981, King Crimson reformed as a quartet with Fripp, Bruford, ex-Gabriel and John Lennon sideman Tony Levin on bass, and former Zappa guitarist Adrian Belew on vocals. This band released three acclaimed albums in a four-year run: Discipline, Beat and 1984's Three of a Perfect Pair. This incarnation of Crimson has a lot in common with experimental New York rockers like the Talking Heads and Laurie Anderson, with an emphasis on both rhythm and wholly original structure and lyrics. Their singles rarely troubled the charts, but found some airplay in college enclaves. Pair, allegedly the weakest of the three, contains more industrial, driving, funky improvisation on its second half, and the guitar interplay between Fripp and Belew is compelling.

After the band split again, Fripp continued experimenting with dense guitar soundscapes with other small acts, such as the League of Gentlemen, and doing much session work. His collaborations with David Sylvian on 1986's Gone to Earth eventually led him to a short 1992 tour with Sylvian and bassist/stickist Trey Gunn, and the subsequent Sylvian & Fripp album The First Day, and this led to a world tour with the addition of Michael Brook and drummer Pat Mastelotto. It was thought for some time that this five piece would become the new King Crimson. However, Fripp surprised fans by forming a new six-piece band comprising a "double trio" format.

The new King Crimson began touring in 1994, and comprised Fripp, Gunn and Mastelotto along with Belew, Levin and Bruford. They issued an EP called VROOOM from their studio rehearsals, but saved their most harsh, industrial, grinding and improvised work for 1995's Thrak. Unfortunately, this outstanding music had a long climb to find an audience. Far too discordant for the classic rock stations that might conceivably play tunes from a 60s veteran, and far too complicated for grunge audiences, the album was a very minor hit. The band stayed on the road for most of 1995 and 1996 to support the album.

B'Boom, an "official bootleg," was released during this tour. Recorded in Buenos Aires while the band was on their "rehearsal tour" and issued to counter sales of an inferior quality bootleg (from KTS?), it's a great document that shows several of the VROOOM and Thrak pieces in nascent form, with additional performances of some of their 1980s catalog, and the 1970s tunes "Red" and "Lark's Tongue in Aspic Part II." For a very different live experience, hunt down THRaKaTTaK, or, better yet, don't. This album edits several of the strange, industrial improvs from various points in the tour into one, ummmm, symphony of noise. Unfortunately, what might have been an entertaining, or, at worst, diverting for a few minutes between or in the middle of one song on one night is a patience-breaking monster when suffered for the better part of an hour. Ample credit to Fripp for having the guts to release this nasty cacaphony; it is by no means a pleasant listen.

Following the Thrak tour, Fripp broke the band into several "component parts" called "ProjeKCts." These side acts played various live shows for three years before Crimson returned as a four-piece with The ConstruKction of Light in 2000. Along the way, Fripp augmented his catalog with a huge number of archival releases. Among the first of these archival albums was the frequently-bootlegged Nightwatch show from Amsterdam's Concertgebouw in 1973. The show, professionally recorded, was the source of not just countless radio broadcasts throughout Europe, but also the original tracks, atop which, the band overdubbed in the studio for about half of the Starless and Bible Black LP. This performance is 82 minutes long, necessitating two CDs, though sadly Fripp did not feel like adding any bonus tracks to fill the running time.

Despite this quibble with the running time, The Nightwatch is an excellent listen, with Wetton in full attack growl. It shows modern audiences who came on board with the Thrak material that the band had long been breaking away from a standard set into heavy rock improv, and it is an extremely dense, but listenable performance from what a lot of people consider the "classic" KC lineup of Fripp, Wetton, Palmer and Cross.

The Nightwatch, and the 4-CD Epitaph box of 1969 recordings which was released around the same time, were the springboard for an intense program of archival products. Apart from occasional live releases through record stores, Discipline Global Mobile's mail order division started issuing between three and six live albums a year through a subscription "collectors club." As of writing (Jan. 2002), there have been 19 albums released in this series.

KING CRIMSON: The Compact King Crimson (1986, ***)
According to the sleeve notes, Fripp is responsible for the track listing for this made-for-CD best-of album, but its current unavailability probably speaks volumes about what he really thinks of such slapdash profit-driven compilations. This features eight songs from Crimson's three most current releases, followed by four of the songs from their 1969 debut. It's all listenable, but it's tough to find any artistic points on something assembled with as much care as a high school mix tape.

KING CRIMSON: The Best of the John Wetton Years (Teeny Weeny)
Well, if twenty months equals "years," then this is a respectable pirate best-of, which includes a rare 1973 live version of "Easy Money" along with the studio tracks. This is a great way to sample the second version of Crimson, which teamed the venerable bassist Wetton with Robert Fripp, Bill Bruford and David Cross. There's nothing wrong with any of these songs that removing Cross's screeching violins wouldn't fix. It includes two songs from Lark; Tongues in Aspic, over half of Starless and Bible Black and almost the entire Red album, which is a damn fine record.

KING CRIMSON: Copenhagen Amager Bio (May 28 2000)
An above-average double-CD audience recording of this show from early in the ConstruKction of Light tour. This was designed to be traded freely.