KING CRIMSON — Islands (review)

Album · 1971 · Proto-Metal

4/5 · 2019-03-29
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KING CRIMSON took the world by storm by unleashing an upgraded form of art rock that would be penned progressive rock and would forever change the coarse of rock music while launching an arms race of rock music that quickly increased the sophistication, however the band despite its brilliant debut “In The Court Of The Crimson King” was not only prolifically eclectic but quite volatile. It wouldn’t take long for various members to butt heads about which particular style to emphasize and which direction the band should steer towards. While the band had only released the debut in October 1969, a restless ambitiousness possessed those who stuck around and 1970 saw two more albums, “In The Wake Of Poseidon” and “Lizard” which explored even more eclectic sounds. It was at this point that bassist Gordon Haskell and drummer Andy McCulloch were finding Robert Fripp’s avant-garde tastes too much to handle and were more interested in remaining in a more focused blues rock arena, but Fripp was having none of it and after an acrimonious kerfuffle, the two split and a new version of KING CRIMSON arose from the ashes.

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Despite a burgeoning prog rock scene just two years after it all began, Fripp was having trouble finding suitable replacements as many of his picks were in other commitments. John Wetton had joined Family, Bryan Ferry was off to Roxy Music. After the monumental task of filling the slots, the role of new lead vocalist and bassist was awarded to Raymond “Boz” Burrell who ironically didn’t even know how to play bass at the time and learned how in order to join the band based on his skills as a rhythm guitarist. He wouldn’t last long in KC and would go on to join Bad Company. The position of drummer was given to a relative unknown named Ian Wallace and then KING CRIMSON spent 1971 recording their fourth album ISLANDS which was released in December on Island Records. Another feature of this new lineup was that they were capable of playing live which KC hadn’t done since the short-lived first lineup after the debut. The band spent 1971 touring and recording before the new albums even released.

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ISLANDS is the oddball in the already eclectic canon of this hard to categorize musical entity. With the new members on board, so too came their musical sensibilities but the main drive was the differences in musical tastes that founding members Robert Fripp and Peter Sinfield were undergoing. Fripp was moving to a harsher dissonant sound that would peak on the future “Red” whereas Sinfiled was more interested in the softer orchestral jazz collaborations that Miles Davis performed with artists such as Gil Evans, thus making ISLANDS the most overtly jazzy album of KC’s career. In fact ISLANDS has many unique qualities absent from other KC albums. Not only does it feature the only foray into the world of chamber rock string ensembles on “Prelude: Song Of The Gulls” but finds an overall more atmospheric approach that in some ways is an early example of what post-rock would eventually become, namely a chamber rock plethora of instrumentation that creates non-rock music in atmospheric textures.

A

Clearly a mellower affair than the previous heavier rockers, ISLANDS finds a tug-of-war in action where Fripp’s heavy guitar antics flare up in tracks like “Sailor’s Tale” but find themselves subdued beneath an airy-fairy gentleness of a totally relaxed vocal style of Burrell whose hypnotic bass playing surely giving rise to this proto-post rock effect. Once again the five official band members were joined by a few extra session musicians including the ferocious piano attack of Keith Tippett as well as a more pronounced use of the cornet and oboe. Given that the jazz elements are the main focus, the squawking saxophone is ubiquitous and the under represented bass flute finds some key moments on ISLANDS as well. All in all, the strange elements vying for control make this totally unique as the different instruments find themselves performing unconventional roles but somehow create a larger sum of the parts that takes the listener to some journey into the heavens above as displayed by the album cover art of the Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius.

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“Formentera Lady” kicks off the album in a near ten minute hypnotic groove of a repetitive bass line and avant-garde backing of the callithump of various instruments that freely float around but the following “Sailor’s Tale” provides the closest thing to a true rocker with a boisterous attempt by Fripp to deliver some angular guitar workouts as well as a more energized Ornette Coleman styled saxophone workout. The album teeters on the precipice of order and chaos with moody melodies struggling to find full fruition and extreme bouts into noisy angularity at its most delicate balance on “The Letters.” The most cheery and melodic track comes in the form of the Beatles-esque “Ladies Of The Road” which delivers a rather catchy ear hook and even culminates in some amazing vocal harmonies but not without a hypnotic bass groove that ushers a frenetic sax and irritable guitar along the way. This is probably the track where all the styles on board coalesce the most sublimely.

D

After the chamber rock string ensemble fluffer of “Prelude” Song Of Gulls,” the album ends with the vocal jazz title track that begins with a gentle piano and almost sedate bass flute as it slowly drifts into higher gear but never really sets the world on fire but still finds away to drift on for over nine minutes as it engages in a rather cyclical melodic flow much like modern post-rock with a jazzy talking sax that punctuates the otherwise serene and hypnotic atmospheric haze. There is also a hidden track after a few seconds of silence that simply finds the band in the studio practicing. ISLANDS was probably the toughest nuts to crack of the early KC albums as it took a long time for it to sink in. While still not my preferred album of choice when rocking to the Crimson ones, it is nevertheless an interesting specimen of progressive rock that tackles jazz-fusion, symphonic chamber music and twisted illogical art rock all rolled up into one. It’s almost as if this was a precursor of what Talk Talk would conjure up in the late 80s with albums like “Spirit Of Eden,” a bold musical statement that allowed the textures and ambience of the instruments paint an impressionist aural experience.

S

This is one of those divisive albums where some claim it to be the pinnacle of the KC sound and others the exact opposite calling ti the biggest disappointment. I started out as the former but have come to terms with this interesting musical spectacle, that is understanding it on its own terms and not imposing my will of what it should’ve been. This is a subtly beautiful album that admittedly takes a lot more time to warm up to but seems to make more sense with a fair amount of listens. Once again, the turmoil that was KING CRIMSON would find band members not seeing eye to eye and the lifestyle choices of drug using band members led the sober Robert Fripp to drift away into his own world which caused the band to break up but as is well known, Fripp would regroup in a couple years and deliver a completely new third major lineup of the band and release the completely different “Lark’s Tongues In Aspic” which would allow much of the rock aspects to once again reign. While it took some time, warm up to ISLANDS i did and once i did, it shed a new light on its place in the rock history books.