Dual CD Review: Dewa Budjana, Surya Namaskar; Tohpati, Tribal Dance

Dewa Budjana, with Jimmy Johnson & Vinnie Colaiuta

Surya Namaskar

MoonJune Records MJRO63 (2014)

Tohpati, featuring Jimmy Haslip & Chad Wackerman

Tribal Dance

MoonJune Records MJRO64 (2014)

It sounds like an intriguing musical combination. Take an Indonesian guitarist, well-versed in Western progressive and fusion music yet not forsaking the structures and sonorities of his native land; and pair him with a rhythm section comprising a bassist who has played with Allan Holdsworth and a drummer who has played with Frank Zappa. A rare concoction, right?

Not if you are Leonardo Pavkovic, whose MoonJune label specializes in prog and jazz fusion with ethnic flavors and a flair for the unusual. In 2014, he managed to release CDs from not one but two different trios of the same ethnic and musical combination described above. That’s two extraordinarily talented Indonesian guitarists fronting incredible trios.

Surya Namaskar features guitarist Dewa Budjana, bassist Jimmy Johnson, and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta. It was recorded in Los Angeles in September 2013. Tribal Dance features Tohpati (as he’s billed) on guitar, Jimmy Haslip on bass, and Chad Wackerman on drums. It was recorded in January and October 2013. In Los Angeles (except for one track recorded in Jakarta earlier this year). For a city sitting on top of so many fault lines, it was very risky having both these dynamic trios recording in L.A. in the same year.

According to Pavkovic, “Tohpati has a very big profile in Indonesia, mostly in the pop world as a top session player, composer, and arranger for many pop stars. But Dewa Budjana is huge in Indonesia, his band, called GIGI, is one of the most famous in the country. What I am able to capture of them on MoonJune is maybe 0.5% of what they do in their careers.”

Of the two CDs, Surya Namaskar is the more progressive-sounding, very muscular and daring with the unexpected twists and turns one expects from a prog recording. Fully instrumental (except for a vocal on the largely improvised “Kalingga,” which also features Sundanese violin and harp), the album’s sound is fleshed out with important contributions from such notable musicians as Gary Husband (synthesizer on the King Crimson-esque opener, “Fifty”) and Michael Landau (guitar solos on “Campuhan Hill,” which Dewa composed after his first meeting with Holdsworth). The music is impressive and relentlessly energetic. In spite of their power and ability, Johnson and Colaiuta show great restraint; each is fully capable of taking over a tune or a session with their virtuosity (which nevertheless is on display throughout, especially for Colaiuta on “Lamboya” where he becomes a cyclone under Dewa’s restatement of the theme), but the spotlight is firmly on Dewa throughout the CD and he shines.

Tribal Dance, in contrast, is more of an East-meets-West affair, largely in the realm of jazz fusion with ethnic influences. This trio is a bit more democratic, with Haslip and Wackerman getting a few spotlights of their own; in particular, Haslip takes a nice solo on “Run” and Wackerman turns up the heat at the end of the title track, the middle of the following tune, “Red Mask,” and “Supernatural.” Several of the songs open with exotic chants or percussion before leading into the composition proper, as if Indonesia was setting the table for the American musical feast to follow. The one exception is the closer, “Midnight Rain,” which stays largely in the East (in fact, it is the only track recorded in Indonesia). Tohpati is a very fluid and nimble player who uses effects sparingly but effectively. One can detect traces of Di Meola and Scofield in his playing, but he is very much his own artist.

If these CDs are any indication of the talent that exists in Indonesia (the fourth most populous country in the world), more Western musicians and labels should be heading out that way to mine the apparently very rich veins of musical ability to be found. If they do go there, they will find that Pavkovic has had a head start.

“There is great talent in Indonesia,” he says, “but also great diversity. For example, Tohpati is ethnic Javanese, from Java, so he has certain influences, both genetic and musical, that might be different from Dewa, who is ethnic Balinese, which is a minority in Indonesia. I am also working with Dwiki Dharmawan, a well-known pianist and keyboardist; guitarist Reza Ryan from I Know You Well Miss Clara, who has more European influences, such as Terje Rypdal, Jan Akkerman, and Phil Manzanera; and two other guitarists, Agam Hamzah and Tesla Manaf Effendi. They are all very different from each other.”

As for these two recordings, it is always nice to see the trio format utilized; it is, in my opinion, the structure that requires the most awareness, instinct, and communication among the musicians. In the jazz world, some of the greatest recordings of all time have been made by trios, and these two releases add considerable luster to the form. Both guitarists are well worth watching out for.

CD Review: Heliopolis, City of the Sun

Heliopolis

City of the Sun

10t Records, 10T10078 (2014)

Back in 1989, I was certain that progressive rock was dead. I had a fairly decent view of the landscape back then, as I was publishing a monthly newsletter on the genre entitled On Reflection. Though it wasn’t the reason I started the venture, one of the biggest perks was that labels and bands sent me their wares to review. Unfortunately, it was the quality of those wares that led me to believe that prog had indeed fossilized into the dinosaur remains predicted more than 10 years earlier when punk took hold. Simply put, most of the recordings were awful.

It wasn’t so much that the musicians didn’t have chops, manly of them were quite talented. The problem was that they were not progressive. They didn’t just wear their influences on their sleeves, they draped them over three-piece suits. There were bands that sounded just like Genesis, or just like Yes, or just like Emerson, Lake & Palmer. If a band had the courage to attempt to sound just like more complex outfits like Gentle Giant and King Crimson, I would give them points for effort, but they were justifiably few in number.

It got so bad that I eventually shut down the newsletter and plunged myself into the healing waters of jazz, where the musicianship was even more impressive, the idea of blatantly copying another musician or group was anathema, and the music was heartfelt and honest – with no Taurus bass pedals, no ridiculous lyrics, and no capes.

In the ensuing years, I have continued to enjoy the prog that I always liked and have been downright suspicious of any modern attempts to wave the banner. I have written features and CD reviews for Progression magazine (which, incidentally, was originally launched as a continuation of On Reflection by one of my subscribers, with my blessing and assistance) since 2010, and while no 21^st-century progressive band has joined my personal Mount Progmore, I do realize that there are artists doing interesting things with the tools and technologies now available, who have a couple more decades of influences to absorb, and who are facing an even more hostile recording industry.

So perhaps my heart has softened, perhaps I have become more sentimental and nostalgic, perhaps I have left my guard down, but I do now acknowledge that prog has a pulse left. Even so, nothing could prepare me for City of the Sun, the debut album of Los Angeles-based Heliopolis, which I have to say is freaking awesome!

At the outset, they have all the trappings of prog-chic: a cosmic name; a five-piece lineup with wailing lead vocalist and hot-shot guitarist, keyboardist, bass, and drummer; and suite-like songs in excess of 10 minutes in length. A Theremin even appears, played by Probyn Gregory of the Wondermints and Brian Wilson’s band (in the latter group it is he who plays the Theremin – actually a Tannerin – on “Good Vibrations”).

As for the music, well, it’s classic prog as well, and while influences are discernible (the opening suite, “New Frontier,” in addition to sharing a title with a Donald Fagen composition, starts off with Crimson-esque crunch and cacophony, and once the vocals appear the composition ends up sounding like it could have borne the credits of Lee, Lifeson, Peart), there are no slavish imitations of anything that came before. Rather, there is a rich diversity of moods, tempos, and arrangements, where pop overtones and reflective balladry meld smoothly with jazz fusion and hard rock. For example, the six-minute “Elegy,” dedicated to the late singer/drummer Shaun Guerin, is not in the least bit funereal, unless you’re talking about a Viking funeral. This track has energy and passion to spare.

As for the players themselves, the high tenor vocals of Scott Jones are more Steve Hogarth than Greg Lake, and his articulation and emotion make the words worth listening to. With drummer Jerry Beller, keyboardist Matt Brown, and bassist Kerry Chicoine supplying harmony vocals, the voice component of the musical mix is thoughtfully and effectively deployed throughout.

On multiple keyboards, Brown supplies a wide range of compelling sounds and textures. With a focus on evocative musical expression, he is not one to supply aimless synth washes or death-ray flares; rather, he uses interesting voicings to complement what I would call “real” playing, as on his funky/jazzy solo on “Elegy” or his spacy but substantial solo on the 14-minute closer, “Love and Inspiration.”

The “rhythm section” is typically more a topic for discussion in jazz than in prog, where in many cases the bassist and the drummer act as competing soloists rather than as collaborating cogs in a unified rhythmic system. Chicoine and Beller defy that characterization, deftly executing sudden tempo shifts and providing exactly what the complex music requires to keep from falling apart – along with ample opportunities to add exciting filigrees.

Guitarist Matier eschews the prog stereotypes of pretzel fingers and faux classical renderings, preferring to wring a mix of intensity and lyricism from his instruments, playing metal power chords one moment and soaring, melodic solos that get under your skin and drill intro your brain the next. On the short, Rundgren-esque Mr. Wishbone, Matier plays all the instruments except drums.

My personal favorite track on the album (with five tracks in all, the CD clocks in at a respectable 42:48) is the second, the nearly-nine-minute “Take a Moment.” Musical and lyrical drama and intrigue are built through an ascending vocal line, frequently shifting tempos and dynamics, and powerful solos from Brown and Matier. The lyrics includes the following lines:

Life’s but a journey

Never ending, Just unfolding

Always happening the way that it should be

Grudgingly, I have to admit that the same could apply to progressive rock, even in 2014. I guess I have Heliopolis to thank (or blame) for that.

Rebooting the Blog: Introduction/King Crimson Concert Review

Have you ever looked up the definition of a word that you already know what it means, just to see what the actual definition is? I just did that with “reboot” and the definition was “boot again.” I guess it serves me right. After all, my life philosophy is “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” (a line by Bob Dylan), which to me has always meant, “have faith in your own instincts and intelligence, you don’t need an authority to tell you what’s clearly obvious to you.”

So why did I bother in the first place? Because I am rebooting my blog and I thought it would be fun to do it dictionary-style. I was wrong. And I may be wrong about rebooting my blog but since most of my readers are probably people who found it by accident, it doesn’t really matter. But to me and to anyone who has actually popped by with any regularity over the last few years, it does matter, or it should.

From the get-go, my blog was intended to be one way of building what the dying publishing industry calls a “platform” – an established area of expertise one has, along with a built-in following who might be interested in purchasing one’s books. The platform I chose – perhaps more accurately, it chose me – is music. After all, my first novel, The Grave & The Gay*, was based on a 17^th-century English folk ballad, while the second one I am currently struggling mightily with was inspired by a song by jazz singer Cassandra Wilson.

Maintaining a blog is no easy deal, as I soon found out, and I have frequently written posts that have nothing to do with music. That may prove to be true as well in the future, but to help invigorate my blog and infuse it with meaning, I have decided to reboot it primarily as a concert and CD review site. I have plenty of both to get me started, but if you are reading this and you have a CD you’d like me to review, please contact me via my website – http://jasonmrubin.com – and I will tell you how to send it to me.

I should note that I have a particular interest in prog and jazz, but am a fan of rock, pop, soul, and folk, as well as ethnic/world music and anything that doesn’t fit neatly in the dying music industry’s various marketing labels. I also write CD reviews and features for Progression magazine, and reviews and articles for the Arts Fuse online magazine and Musicovation blog, so I’m not a complete dodo.

Before I launch into my first review, I want to remind/inform my readers (intentional or accidental, you both are welcome here) the meaning behind the blog’s title, Dove Nested Towers. It is a typically inventive phrase by Van Dyke Parks that is part of the lyrics to the Brian Wilson masterpiece composition “Surf’s Up.” Originally written in 1966 for the Beach Boys’ aborted Smile album, the song eventually appeared in 1971 as the title track of the band’s LP offering that year. Brian did his own version in 2004 on Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE, and five different versions appear on the 2011 Smile Sessions boxed set. It is my favorite song.

*http://www.amazon.com/Grave-Gay-Jason-M-Rubin/dp/098496309X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411849518&sr=8-1&keywords=the+grave+and+the+gay

Concert review: King Crimson, September 16, 2014, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Any band still going that started out in the late '60s by now will have experienced any number of lineup changes. Typically these are due to death or the intentionally vague “musical differences” and they tend to involve a single player. King Crimson is anything but a typical band. When they have a lineup change, it usually means everyone but the guitarist has been let go. Indeed, Robert Fripp, the seated lead guitarist who dresses and appears as composed as an accountant but plays like a zombie slayer, has been the one and only constant in what has now been eight different lineups since 1969.

These lineups have included a trio, quartet, quintet, and a double trio composed of two drummers, two guitarists, and two bass/Stick players. The eighth lineup may be the oddest one yet: seven musicians, including no fewer than three drummers who are set up in the front of the stage (Gavin Harrison, Bill Rieflin, and Pat Mastelotto), with two guitarists (Fripp and Jakko Jakszyk), bassist/Stick master Tony Levin, and sax/flute guru Mel Collins comprising the second line.

One reason for the many lineup changes (the band has accommodated a total of 21 full-time musicians in its history) is that it periodically breaks up and reforms. The first hiatus was from 1974-1981. By 1974, the band had endured three lineup changes in five years. The 1981 lineup had a successful three-year stint before ceasing operations until 1993, when the double trio was introduced. Two more hiatuses take us to the present day.

With each tour, Fripp takes pains to warn fans not to arrive at the venue with expectations that anything from prior lineups will be played. Typically, some older songs are included in the set lists, but the idea of a “greatest hits” repertoire is anathema to Fripp, who regards Crimson as “a way of doing things” rather than as an ongoing jukebox.

So it was that I arrived at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston to experience how King Crimson would be “doing things” after 45 years of stops and starts. In spite of Fripp’s warnings, lineup #8 did seem to suggest that a retrospective approach to song election was possible. After all, Harrison was with the band in 2008; Jakszyk performed in a Crimson alumni band and has collaborated with Fripp, Collins, and Harrison; Mastelotto and Levin have done a few stints with Crimson together and apart, and Collins goes as far back as 1970.

What transpired was beyond all my expectations and, dare I say, fantasies. It should be noted that my favorite era of King Crimson was 1973-74; that three-album span featured my favorite rock-oriented drummer, Bill Bruford, as well as bassist/vocalist John Wetton, a brilliant player who seemed ever to be in search of fame and finally found it in 1983 in the band Asia. That era was particularly well-represented, and in fact the set’s opener (“Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part One”) and closer (“Starless”) came from those albums, along with four other songs (“Red,”, “One More Red Nightmare,” “The Talking Drum,” and “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part Two”). That, for me, was well worth the price of admission.

The rarely acknowledged Islands album from 1972 (the last of three that Collins appeared on) surprisingly offered two songs, “The Letters” and the jazz-metal instrumental workout, “Sailor’s Tale.” Collins was also proud representative of the 1970 tune “Pictures of a City,” blaring on sax with the force of a Peter Brotzmann (look him up). Collins, whom I saw on Roger Waters’ first solo tour in 1984, was one of four MVPs of this show, playing soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone sax in addition to flute.

Of the eight remaining songs, six date from after Bruford left the band, at which time I took my own hiatus from Crimson’s only-constant-is-change gyrations. As such, I was not familiar with them, though the level of musicianship was consistently amazing throughout the show. As a final encore, the band rocked through the touchstone tune, the opener on Crimson’s 1969 debut album, “21^st Century Schizoid Man,” which featured an astounding drum solo by Harrison, who was another MVP, as was Tony Levin, who played three different basses and Chapman Stick and had the unenviable responsibility of anchoring the heavy, complex playing of this seven-legged sea monster.

The final MVP I would give to Fripp himself, who says nothing on stage and yet says all there needs to be said on his guitar. It could well be said that Robert Fripp is also a way of doing things, and like the band he has carried on through thick and thin, there is no one who does it anything like he does. As for the three drummers, I feel that Harrison could have done the job himself (as, indeed, Bruford could have done, and maybe would have if he and Fripp were not currently as close as Ray and Dave Davies).

It is inevitable that this lineup will cease to exist and another hiatus will begin. But Fripp is 68 now and one has to wonder how much more of this he can take. One night was powerful enough for me; imagine being in the midst of it night after night. He has finally plumbed the depths of the King Crimson catalogue and past lineups so if there is a ninth lineup, it will be a challenge to make it a surprising one. But setting up and facing challenges is ultimately what King Crimson is all about; indeed, it is what it does best.

King Crimson Returns From the Dead – Again

-->The King is dead. Long live the King.

When the king in question is progressive rock legends King Crimson, this is not news. Practically alone among all contemporary music ensembles, King Crimson has made a habit of being active for a few years before splitting up, then reforming a few years later – typically with a radically different lineup and sonic palette. Just last week, leader, guitarist, and lone mainstay Robert Fripp announced that the group, moribund since 2008, would be “returning to active service” as of September 2014.

Predictably, the lineup (Crimson’s eighth since 1969) is new and highly unorthodox. The group’s foundation comprises no fewer than three drummers: previous members Gavin Harrison (on loan from latter-day proggers Porcupine Tree) and Pat Mastelotto, and Bill Reiflin (REM). On-again, off-again member Tony Levin (bass and Chapman Stick) is on again. Saxophonist Mel Collins, who last played with Crimson in 1974, returns, while newcomer Jakko Jakszyk (who played in a Crimson cover band as well as a trio with Fripp and Collins) joins Fripp on guitar duties.

As notable as who is in the band is who is not. Guitarist Adrian Belew, who endured through three lineup changes over the past three decades, was not asked to participate. On his Facebook page, Belew noted, “Robert informed me in an email that he was starting a 7-piece version of the band. He said I would not be right for what the band is doing.” Drummer Bill Bruford, widely considered to be Crimson’s (and the progressive rock genre’s) all-time best drummer, retired in 2009 after penning his autobiography, which details the increasingly prickly relationship he had with Fripp at the end of their 20-year association.

Fripp has often said that studio recordings are like love letters while live performances are hot dates. In a break from group history, the new incarnation of Crimson has no plans for making a studio recording (the last Crimson album of new material was released in 2003) and instead is compiling a concert tour focusing on the U.S., during which the band will perform new renditions of classic material.

Though the active-inactive-reactive pattern has long been established, Fripp’s news has shocked the progressive rock community, largely because Fripp himself announced his own retirement from performance in an interview with The Financial Times in August 2012. The original King Crimson went through three lineups from 1969-1974 before Fripp announced that the band had “ceased to exist.” It did not reappear until 1981, when Fripp and Bruford reformed with Americans Belew and Levin. That lineup made three albums in three years and broke up in 1985, only to reform in 1994 as a “double trio” with two guitarists (Fripp and Belew), two Stick players (Levin and Trey Gunn), and two drummers (Bruford and Mastelotto).

Today, with an eighth lineup after four hiatuses, King Crimson is again, in Fripp’s words in “Go! mode”. About the only conclusions one can draw from this is that there is likely in the future to be yet another hiatus with perhaps yet another lineup – that, and the fact that whatever music this new King Crimson makes, it will be highly adventurous, unusual, and heavy. In every incarnation, the band has been a musical pioneer, whether with the Mellotron in the late 60s and early 70s, group improvisation of the highest order in the mid-70s, intricate electronic interplay in the 80s, and bombastic noise in the 90s and 00s. In an era when old bands routinely reform for money rather than from inspiration, it is refreshing that a consistently noncommercial group like King Crimson feels it still has useful work to do.

Apparently Mel Brooks was right. It is good to be the King.

After 40 Years, King Crimson's Larks' Tongues in Aspic Is Still a Delicacy

One of my favorite albums of all time is one that I bought in error. One summer, I had served an apprenticeship of sorts. It was 1978, I was 15 years old, and I was working at a summer camp where I became friends with a guy named David Kaplan. He was a few years older than me and a very good guitarist, shy but also very funny. And he had exceptional taste in music: jazz, fusion, progressive rock. I expressed interest and he was happy to school me. It is thanks to him that I am a fanatic about Gentle Giant. It was through him that I first heard the music of Chick Corea. And it was because of him that I became introduced to King Crimson.

If memory serves, he only had one King Crimson album, but it was one that I liked very much. The album was called Starless and Bible Black and it had been released in 1974, back when I was listening to the Monkees, the Osmond Brothers, and the Jackson Five. What struck me most was the first song, a barnstormer called “The Great Deceiver,” which began with the startling couplet, “Health food faggot with a bartered bride/Likes to comb his hair with a dipper ride.” I found it funny but the music itself was relentlessly exciting, aggressive, and surprising. I didn’t know it at the time, but much of it was improvised and recorded live in concert, though the applause had been edited out so it appeared to be a studio-recorded album.

The musicians were Robert Fripp on guitar, John Wetton on bass and vocals, David Cross on violin, and Bill Bruford on drums. David told me that if I liked this album, then I might like the debut album by a new group called U.K., which featured both Wetton and Bruford. This would prove a pattern for me. As I became more sophisticated about music, I would be drawn to bands already defunct or decaying and ignore the music scene that existed around me currently. In 1978, I was ignorant of the emerging New Wave, except for local heroes The Cars. But I couldn’t be bothered because I had nearly a decade of prog history to catch up on.

When camp was over, I went on a shopping spree. I bought Gentle Giant’s Free Hand and U.K.’s eponymous album. Next, I went searching for the King Crimson album with the funny lyric and ferocious music. Trouble was, I couldn’t remember the name of the album or even the cover image. I could, however, for whatever reason, recall the typography (it would be a full decade before I found myself actually working for a digital font company). In one store’s rack, I scoured the King Crimson section and found what I thought was what I was looking for. I bought it, took it home, unsealed it, and put it on my turntable.

Immediately, I knew I had purchased the wrong album. Where Starless and Bible Black had opened with a bang, this one opened with a kalimba, an African thumb piano. Soft percussion builds over the first minute until a violin enters and then fades, reappearing at the three-minute mark, where soon it is joined by Fripp’s guitar. Violin dominates until about 4:30, when all hell breaks loose, and for the first time I am assured that even if I had the album wrong, at least I got the group right.

The album I purchased was Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, released 40 years ago today, on March 23, 1973. It was the first edition of the group to feature the lineup I detailed earlier, and in fact included an additional musician, percussionist Jamie Muir, who left shortly after the album was recorded to join a monastery. The lineup was responsible for the two albums already mentioned, as well as 1974’s Red (the follow-up studio release to Starless and Bible Black, which featured the much-reduced presence of violinist Cross), and a live album, USA, released in 1975 but recorded prior to Red.

For the next 46-and-a-half minutes, Larks’ Tongues in Aspic beat me into submission. It was an overwhelming experience. It began, I suppose, with the cover, a striking sun/moon image that had no words on it at all. The 13:36 opener, “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part 1,” went through various sections, alternately fast and slow, incorporating at one point dialogue from a television drama. In later years, when I first heard Arvo Pärt’s “Miserere,” I likened it to this track as it repeatedly goes from hushed tones to full-throttle chaos in an instant.

The opening track is followed by a short but lovely ballad. “Book of Saturday” clocks in at just under three minutes and features guitar, bass, and violin, along with a nice vocal. It is as calming as the previous track was unnerving. Side 1 ends with “Exiles,” another vocal number; that and the three songs on Side 2 all range between just over seven and just under eight minutes long. “Exiles” is a mostly gentle song featuring the full band, a minor mellow epic that seems to suggest that the opening track was an aberration; that the tunes, short or long, are ambitious but soothing. The opening to Side 2 quickly dispels this notion.

“Easy Money,” the Side 2 opener, brings back the dark dissonance in another multi-part piece that has no trouble balancing a near-a capella opening verse with full-band, full-throttle musical mania. Bruford is a master at repelling any attempt on the listener’s part to tap their foot along with the beat. Just when it seems you have it, it changes and as much as it may initially seem that he’s hitting his snare at random intervals, you realize there’s a logic to it and that he’s in complete control at all times, sometimes making his statement with a crack of the snare and sometimes making it with utter silence. The song ends with the rather frightening sound of a laugh box.

This is followed by a mesmerizing instrumental called “The Talking Drum,” which very slowly and gradually builds from a barely audible groove to a revving turbo charge of energy that must soon be ready to release – yet it doesn’t. It stops on a dime with the metallic opening riff of the album’s closer, “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part 2.” Very unlike “Part 1,” this one is a straight hard blast of immense electric power, a roiling instrumental that takes no prisoners and shows no mercy.

Thus it was that I ended up instantly loving this album that I bought in error, which only served to propel me back to a different store to find Starless and Bible Black and explore the King Crimson catalogue thoroughly, just as I began to do with the prog and fusion artists mentioned earlier and others that I and my friends were yet to discover. Forty years after Larks’ Tongues in Aspic was released, 35 after I first heard it, it remains a remarkable work that is always in power rotation on my home stereo.

Thirty Years On, King Crimson’s Discipline Retains Its Power

King Crimson, Discipline. Released September 22, 1981.

In the Jewish community, a boy comes of age at his bar mitzvah, which typically occurs at age 13. For me, that was 1976. Disco was at its height and bad fashion was the only fashion there was. But at 13, I didn’t care so much about the rather desolate cultural landscape into which I was thrust. At 15, however, I did begin to care. In just those two years, the insipid simplicity of disco was replaced by the inspired simplicity of New Wave. But simplicity was not where my head was at. I’d begun doing certain things recreationally and my brain was excited by more complex and sophisticated music.

By 1979, I was firmly a fan of “progressive rock,” most specifically the music of bands such as Gentle Giant, King Crimson, Yes, Pink Floyd, ELP, The Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, Genesis, and Rush. These bands would more or less align themselves with the credo that appeared in the liner notes of Gentle Giant’s second album, from 1971: “It is our goal to expand the frontiers of contemporary popular music at the risk of becoming very unpopular.” Applying instrumentation not typically found in rock music (such as violin, cello, and flute), technology (such as synthesizers and various new gizmos), lengthy compositions, and album-length concepts, progressive rock was never radio-friendly, though some groups like Yes, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and Rush did manage to become quite popular, often through a somewhat more accessible tune edited for radio that managed to slip through the programming gatekeepers.

Unfortunately, 1979 was not a great time to enter this genre. Gentle Giant was working on its final album, continuing a recent trend of ever more commercial-sounding releases. King Crimson had disbanded in 1974. Yes lost its singer and keyboardist following a creative nadir of an album called Tormato. Pink Floyd was riding high with The Wall, but significant personnel changes were on the horizon, as they were with The Moody Blues and Jethro Tull. ELP was gone. Rush was doing well on the radio, which to some extent cut into their prog cred, and an exciting new band called U.K., comprising two ex-members of King Crimson, broke up after only two albums and two tours.

So it was that I turned my back and ears on the current music scene and instead became obsessed with the music of 1967-75. To this day, my younger colleagues consider me “the ‘70s guy.” Even when entering college in the fall of 1981, I was decidedly anti-anything that had to do with ‘80s music or fashion. There was, however, one thing that helped me bridge the gap between the past and the present: the sudden and surprising reappearance of King Crimson.

Unbeknownst to me, guitarist Robert Fripp, the group’s leader and only constant during its initial run from 1969-74, had approached drummer Bill Bruford, who had been in the last incarnation of the band, which lasted from 1972-74 (and on U.K.’s first album, as well as being the original drummer of Yes and serving short tour stints with Genesis and Gong), with the idea of doing a project together. Fripp, who had been working with the likes of David Byrne, Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno, and Daryl Hall, wanted a somewhat funkier drum sound, with less emphasis on cymbals. Bruford had just gotten a Simmons electronic drum kit. Together, they began to sketch out a sound.

Bassist Tony Levin, who had played on Fripp’s first solo album and was a mainstay of Gabriel’s band, was recruited, as was Adrian Belew, an innovative guitarist who had brought interesting sounds to Frank Zappa and the Talking Heads. These two additions were notable in that they were the first Americans to be members of King Crimson (though the band was not yet called that), and they brought with them a host of electronic goodies: Levin the Chapman Stick, and Belew an assortment of pedals and gizmos that enabled him to mimic the sounds of wild animals. Not only that, but never before had another guitarist slung his axe alongside Fripp, an acknowledged master of the instrument.

Fripp dubbed the band Discipline and they began gigging as such. Eventually, Fripp concluded that this band was, in fact, the reincarnation of King Crimson. The name was minimally more marketable (though the band had its cult following, it had been seven years since they last were heard from), but more significantly, it raised the expectations for the outfit.

From my dorm at college, I heard that a new King Crimson album – titled Discipline – was afoot and even more exciting, the band was set to play at the college that spring. I couldn’t imagine what the new Crimson would sound like. My friend Marc, back home in Newton, Massachusetts, bought the album before I did and we listened to it together for the first time over the phone. It was unlike anything we had heard before. Yes, there was a Talking Heads rhythmic influence, the production values were of its time, and it was unquestionably progressive. But the front line of Chapman Stick and the twin interweaving guitars created a unique sonic jigsaw that could only have come from something called King Crimson, even as it distinguished this edition from all previous ones.


I bought the album as soon as I could and played it often. I became very familiar with the seven cuts. But as the concert approached, I began a relationship with that album unlike anything I have ever had with any other recording.

I was a member of the student group that produced and promoted concerts on campus, and one of my responsibilities as a Publicity Department volunteer was to set up a record player on a table on the Campus Center Concourse and play the records of artists who were appearing, give out information, and answer questions. Typically, I had other volunteers I would schedule for when I had classes, but at this time for some reason I can no longer remember, extra hands were hard to come by. Therefore, I manned the turntable for long stretches over a three- or four-week period.

What this meant was that I heard Discipline in full probably four or five times a day for weeks. The first interesting aspect to that is that I never became sick of it. There always seemed to be new things to discover in it. The other thing is that I found the varying tempos and timbres of the album seemed to match perfectly the rise and fall of activity within the Campus Center. In between classes, students would rush through with a cacophonous din of conversation, shoe clacking, and the beeping rustle of retail transactions all around me. But then it would clear out and serenity would take over. Fast, slow, loud, soft, organic and electronic, Discipline had it all, and it truly became my soundtrack for that period of my life.


Ultimately, the concert came and it was a glorious experience. In the meantime, 1981 also saw Rush come out with its masterpiece album, Moving Pictures. In 1982, Asia, a supergroup comprising exp-members of Yes, King Crimson, and ELP, debuted to much commercial acclaim. Yes rocketed to the top of the pyramid in 1983 with 90125. It seemed progressive rock was back with a vengeance. But when Crimson disbanded again in 1984, the genre again appeared on the verge of extinction. Groups still plied their trade, but more often than not the music was a series of trade-offs between the echoes of the glory days and a more commercial, current sound that alienated as many old fans as it did win new converts.

But that’s as may be. The fact is, for 30 of my 48 years, King Crimson’s Discipline has been an album of unique emotional and visceral power for me, one that is by turns terrifying and tranquil, and as complete as it is complex. To Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, and Bill Bruford: Thank you.