King CrimsonKing Crimson is an English England rock Rock music band, founded in 1969 by guitarist Robert Fripp and drummer Michael Giles. Typically categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band has in fact incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during its long history, drawing from jazz, classical European classical music and experimental music to psychedelic rock psychedelic music , heavy metal Heavy metal music , new wave New Wave music , hard rock, gamelan, folk music, electronica and drum and bass. Originating in England, the band has had a mixture of English and American personnel since 1981. King Crimson has garnered little radio or music video airplay but gained a large cult following. The band's debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King, is widely regarded as a landmark in progressive rock, while later excursions into even more unconventional territory have been influential on many contemporary musical artists. King Crimson's membership has fluctuated considerably throughout its existence, with eighteen musicians and two lyricists passing through the ranks as full band members. The band developed a greater degree of stability later on in its history, with current (and fifth) frontman Adrian Belew having been a member of King Crimson since 1981 and drummer Bill Bruford staying with the band for nine years of active existence (1972–74, 1981–84 and 1994–97). Today, King Crimson's early music is considered to owe a lot to the compositional frameworks of jazz innovators like Charles Mingus and John McLaughlin John McLaughlin (musician) , fused with British pop and classical music. The early 1970s were King Crimson's least stable period, with many personnel changes and disjunctions between studio and live sound as the band explored elements of jazz, funk and chamber classical music. In the mid-'70s the band had a more stable lineup and developed an improvisational sound free improvisation influenced by hard rock, before breaking up in 1974. The band re-formed with a new line-up in 1981 for three years (this time influenced by New Wave New Wave music and gamelan music gamelan ) before breaking up again for around a decade. Following their 1994 reunion (with extra personnel), King Crimson blended aspects of their 1980s and 1970s sound with influences from more recent musical genres such as industrial rock and grunge (the latter itself a genre initially influenced by King Crimson). The band’s efforts to blend additional elements into their music have continued into the 21st century, with more recent developments including drum and bass-styled rhythm loops and extensive use of MIDI and guitar synthesis. However, Fripp has strongly dominated the band’s musical approach and compositional approach since their second album, albeit with other members tending to write the more song-oriented elements, to the point where other members have left the band due to creative frustration / notably Ian McDonald Ian McDonald (musician) , Gordon Haskell and Mel Collins. Trey Gunn, who played with the group between 1994 and 2003, has stated that "King Crimson is Robert’s vision. Period." 1960s Prehistory, including Giles, Giles and Fripp (1967-1968) In August 1967, drummer Michael Giles and his bass-playing brother Peter Peter Giles (musician) , who’d been professional musicians in various jobbing bands since their mid-teens, advertised for a singing organist to join their new project. This was a flagrant sign of the musical rift between Fripp and all three of the other members, the latter of whom were attempting to steer the band back towards a rootsier rhythm-and-blues style in open defiance of Fripp. Fripp also finally secured John Wetton as King Crimson’s singer and bass player, recruiting him directly from Family Family (band) , and the lineup was completed by David Cross David Cross (musician) , a relatively unknown violinist who doubled on keyboards (Fripp had encountered Cross through work with music colleges). with "intensely dynamic" musical chemistry between the band members that resulted in a record "aggressive and loud enough to strip the wallpaper off your living room wall". which can be attributed in part to the work of both Belew and Fripp with Talking Heads and David Bowie, Levin's work with Peter Gabriel, and Fripp's work on Exposure Exposure (Robert Fripp album) and with The League of Gentlemen League of Gentlemen (band) . With this new band, described by J. D. Considine in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide Rolling Stone Album Guide#Fourth edition as having a "jaw-dropping technique" of "knottily rhythmic, harmonically demanding workouts",, with a greater use of ambient electronic sound and ideas from industrial music. In contrast, many of the songs / mostly written or finalised by Belew / displayed stronger elements of 1960s pop than before / in particular, a Beatles The Beatles influence). As with previous lineups, new technology was used for, and informed, music. In this case, the technology was MIDI, used extensively by Fripp, Belew and Gunn, to which Gunn would add the Warr Guitar, a tapping guitar instrument with which he would replace his Chapman Stick post-VROOOM. The apparent twinning of instruments was in fact used less than initially suggested. Using Soundscapes Soundscapes by Robert Fripp , the greatly expanded digital successor to Frippertronics, Fripp's guitar began to take more of a textural and ambient role in many pieces; while Gunn’s Stick or Warr Guitar, rather than staying in the bass register with Levin, covered a proportion of the guitar arpeggios as well as producing experimental and distorted sounds and triggering MIDI sounds. The main use of twinned instruments was in the drumming, with Bruford initially taking on a more exploratory role over Mastelotto’s steady beat, although this soon shifted toward a more equitable sharing of roles. The revived band would make their live debut in Buenos Aires in 1995 (recorded for the live album B'Boom: Live in Argentina) and released in August of the same year. In addition to a large body of new material, the band played three mid-70s pieces (“Red”, “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part 2” and “The Talking Drum”) and six songs from the 1980s repertoire, predominantly from Discipline. Thrak (mid-1995) King Crimson released their next full-length studio album, Thrak in April 1995. Containing revised versions of most of the tracks on Vrooom, Thrak was described as having "jazz-scented rock structures, characterised by noisy, angular, exquisite guitar interplay" and an "athletic, ever-inventive rhythm section", A more conventional live recording from the period was later made available on the 2001 double CD release Vrooom Vrooom, as was a 1995 concert on the 2003 Déjà Vrooom DVD. The Double Trio fractures (mid-1997) Although musically exciting, the Double Trio was expensive and cumbersome to run, which in turn led to insecurity. In mid-1997, the band gathered for rehearsals in Nashville which came to a compositional impasse. At this point, the friction between Fripp and a particularly exasperated Bruford effectively ended the latter’s time as a King Crimson member. This, plus the lack of workable material and coherent group ideas, could have broken the band up altogether. Instead, the six members opted for an alternative solution - the ProjeKCts. The ProjeKCts (mid-1997-1999) Rather than split up absolutely, the six musicians of the Double Trio decided to work in smaller "sub-groups" / or "fraKctalisations fractal ", according to Fripp / called ProjeKcts. This enabled the group to continue developing musical ideas and searching for Crimson's next direction without the practical difficulty and expense of convening all six members in one place at once. The various ProjeKCts played live in the USA, Japan and the UK and released a number of recordings which were in many respects similar to the Thrakattak album, demonstrating the improvisational free improvisation musical high wire act that the constituent musicians were able to produce. 2000s King Crimson, lineup 6 (2000-2004) Creating the Double Duo (2000) By the time the ProjeKcts came to end, Bruford had entirely quit King Crimson work to concentrate on Earthworks Earthworks (band) . Levin’s session career commitments / mostly to Peter Gabriel and Seal Seal (musician) / were also obstructing future King Crimson activity and he therefore withdrew from the band. Fortunately, this fitted into Belew’s preference for a smaller unit, while Fripp also stated that he still considered Levin to be a King Crimson member, albeit for now an inactive “fifth member”. The remaining four active members of King Crimson - Belew, Fripp, Gunn, and Mastelotto - continued with the band, sometimes referring to themselves as the “Double Duo” in a tongue-in-cheek reference to the previous line-up. Although it featured two-thirds of the previous band’s personnel and no new members, this incarnation of the band would be strongly distinct from the Double Trio and was effectively a different, rather than reduced, lineup. The altered membership and the experience of the ProjeKcts led to changes in role. Gunn's work in King Crimson moved more towards a bass player’s role / he would supplement his low-end Warr Guitar playing with work on the baritone guitar and Ashbory silicone-string bass Ashbory bass / while Mastellotto made a much greater use of electronics. Once again, new technology was employed: the electronic V-Drums and rhythm-loop machines used for the ProjeKCts) and Belew would entirely embrace Fripp’s New Standard Tuning on guitar. The ConstruKCtion Of Light (2000) King Crimson recorded their next album, The ConstruKction of Light, Although the whole band contributed to arrangements, the basic material on The ConstruKction of Light was almost entirely composed by Belew (songs) and Fripp (instrumentals). To avoid creative frustration, the band recorded a parallel album at the same time under the name of ProjeKct X, called Heaven and Earth Heaven and Earth (2000 album) . This second album was conceived and led by Mastelotto and Gunn (with Fripp and Belew playing subsidiary roles in the band) and was a further development of the polyrhythmic/dance music approach seen earlier in the ProjeKCts. The album’s title track was also included as a bonus track on The ConstruKCtion of Light. Like The ConstruKction of Light, Heaven and Earth was criticised for an apparent lack of new ideas. Level Five and Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With (late 2001-2002) Later in 2001, the band released a limited edition live EP called Level Five, which featured three new pieces. A version of “The Deception of the Thrush”, a ProjeKCt track now regularly featuring in the live set, plus the new tracks “Dangerous Curves” and “Virtuous Circle” suggested that the band was heading back towards a broader dynamic including quieter, more textural work. In 2002, King Crimson released a new EP Happy With What You Have to Be Happy With. This featured eleven tracks (including a live version of “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part IV”) and confirmed that the band were moving back towards greater diversity. Half of the tracks were brief processed vocal snippets sung by Belew, and the songs themselves varied between deliberately-dumb heavy metal, gamelan-ish pop, Soundscapes and more blues spoofing. The Power To Believe (2003) The two EPs both acted as work-in-progress reveals for King Crimson’s 2003 album The Power to Believe, which Fripp described as "the culmination of three years of Crimsonising" and which was possibly the most self-referential album of the band’s career. The album incorporated reworked and/or retitled versions of “Deception of the Thrush” and four of the EP tracks, plus a 1997 Soundscape with added instrumentation and vocals, and also used lyrics from an Adrian Belew solo song (“All Her Love Is Mine”) as a linking theme across four songs. It did, however, confirm the band’s return to more diverse songwriting and instrumentation, with a greater reliance on space and Soundscapes and with Mastelotto using more ProjeKCt-style percussion textures. Songs such as “EleKCtric” fused 1970s, 1980s and twenty-first century Crimson styles, and the album ran the gamut from metal to ambient. Once again, the band toured to support the album, resulting in the 2003 live album EleKtrik: Live in Japan, recorded in Tokyo. Departure of Gunn and return of Levin (late 2003-early 2004) In late November 2003, Trey Gunn announced his departure from King Crimson. He would continue his active association with Mastelotto in projects such as TU TU (band) and KTU, as well as leading his own band. Tony Levin was subsequently reinstalled as King Crimson’s bass player, reconvening with Fripp, Belew and Mastelotto for rehearsals in early 2004. However, nothing followed on from this and while the band did not formally split it was placed on hold for another three years. "On hold" (2004-2007) By this point, Fripp was continually reassessing King Crimson in view of his dislike of the music industry and what he saw as the unsympathetic side of touring. While this did not break up the band, it contributed to changes in approach. During the four years of King Crimson inactivity, Fripp continued to nurture the Discipline Global Mobile label and to tour solo Soundscapes. Levin continued with sessions and his own Tony Levin Band. Belew embarked on another round of solo career activity, including work with his new Adrian Belew Power Trio, while Mastellotto continued his side work with Trey Gunn (mostly in the band TU) and others. King Crimson, lineup 7 (late 2007-present) A double-drum quintet (late 2007) A new King Crimson line-up was announced in late 2007, consisting of Fripp, Belew, Levin, Mastelotto, and a new second drummer – Gavin Harrison (the band’s first new British member since 1972). Although best known as the drummer for Porcupine Tree, a position he continues to hold alongside his King Crimson work, Harrison had a formidable reputation as one of the best session drummers in the music industry and had had a long career including work with Level 42, The Lodge The Lodge (band) , Jakko Jakszyk, Sam Brown Sam Brown (singer) and innumerable others. Most recent activity (2008-present) The new five-man lineup began rehearsals in spring 2008. In August of the same year, the band set out on a brief four-city tour in preparation for the group's 40th Anniversary in 2009. Live, the band revealed an increasingly drum-centric direction but no new material or any extended improvisations. However, many of the pieces from the back catalogue received striking new arrangements, most notably the renditions of "Neurotica," "Sleepless," and "Level Five", all of which were given percussion-heavy overhauls, presumably to highlight the return to the dual-drummer format. On August 20, 2008, DGMLive issued a download-only release of the August 7th, 2008 concert in Chicago, with more recordings from the New York shows scheduled for availability in the near future. More rehearsals and shows had been intended for 2009, but these were cancelled following scheduling clashes with various members' other projects and developments with Fripp's own priorities. In a June 2009 interview with Crawdaddy, Adrian Belew commented: "My last communication with Robert (Fripp) is that he’s got three things he wants to be doing right now: He wants to finish all the litigation he has against everybody who owes us money, and then he wants to try to pay off his debts, that’s second, and then he wants to organize his life. Those are his three points. And I read between the lines that he doesn’t want to be doing anything this year, but I have also read between the lines that he still wants to do more after that. So I asked him, “Does this mean that we are divorced?” and he said, “Absolutely not! As long as there is a monster margarita waiting for me, I’ll be back.” So, I think that not this year, but probably next year."The 2000s also saw the reunion of former King Crimson members from the band's first four albums. The 21st Century Schizoid Band (fronted by Jakko Jakszyk and featuring Ian McDonald Ian McDonald (musician) , Mel Collins, Peter Giles Peter Giles (musician) and Michael Giles – the latter later replaced by Ian Wallace) toured and played material from the band's 1960s and 1970s catalogue. In August 2008, a line-up called Crimson Project with Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, Eddie Jobson and Eric Slick (from the Adrian Belew Power Trio) played a short set at a Russian festival.Fripp has described King Crimson as "a way of doing things", As a result of this influence, In the Court of the Crimson King is frequently viewed as the nominal starting point of the symphonic rock or progressive rock movements. Steve Reich, and Terry Riley. Musical themes While the group constantly creates new sounds and new pieces, several themes have remained constant from the earliest versions of the band to the present. The most obvious of these themes is composition by the use of a gradually building rhythmic motif. The Holst piece Mars that the original King Crimson played is a clear example of this, with its complex pulse in 5/4 time over which strings and winds, or mellotron in the case of King Crimson, play a skirling melody. This piece evolved into "The Devil's Triangle", based on variations of the central theme of Mars, split into three parts which were increasingly removed from the original Mars, on the In the Wake of Poseidon album. It was followed by many other forms, from "The Talking Drum" in 1973 (on Larks' Tongues in Aspic), "Industry" in 1984 (on Three of a Perfect Pair) all the way to "Dangerous Curves" in 2003 (on The Power to Believe). A second recurring theme is an instrumental piece (often embedded as a break in a song) in which the band plays a passage of considerable rhythmic and polyrhythmic complexity. One of King Crimson's best-known songs, "21st Century Schizoid Man", is an early example. The series of pieces collectively titled Larks' Tongues in Aspic, as well as pieces of similar intent, such as "Thrak" and "Level Five", go deeper into polyrhythmic complexity, delving into rhythms that wander into and out of general synchronisation with each other, yet through polyrhythmic synchronisation all 'finish' together. These polyrhythms are abundant in the band's 1980s work, which contained gamelan-like rhythmic layers and continual staccato patterns overlaying each other. Another theme is the composition of difficult passages for individual instruments, especially Fripp's guitar, notably during "Fracture" on Starless and Bible Black. Most of the band's performances over the years have included at least one stand-alone improvisation where the band simply started playing and took the music wherever it went, sometimes including passages of restrained silence, as with Bill Bruford's contribution to the improvised "Trio". The earliest example of an unambiguously improvising King Crimson on record is the spacious, oft-criticised extended coda of "Moonchild" from In the Court of the Crimson King,. What differentiates King Crimson's approach from most other jazz and rock groups (although a slightly similar method was initially used by their contemporaries Weather Report) is that Crimson's improvisation avoids the notion of one soloist at a time taking centre stage while the rest of the band lays back and plays along with established rhythm and chord changes. Rather, King Crimson improvisation is a group affair, a kind of organic music-making process in which each member of the band is able to make creative decisions and contributions as the music is being played. Individual soloing is largely eschewed; each musician is to listen to each other and to the group sound, to be able to react creatively within the group dynamic. David Cross once described the process in this manner: "We're so different from each other that one night someone in the band will play something that the rest of us have never heard before and you just have to listen for a second. Then you react to his statement, usually in a different way than they would expect. It's the improvisation that makes the group amazing for me. You know, taking chances. There is no format really in which we fall into. We discover things while improvising and if they're really basically good ideas we try and work them in as new numbers, all the while keeping the improvisation thing alive and continually expanding." They vary so much in sound that King Crimson has been able to release several albums consisting entirely of improvised music, such as the Thrakattak album. Occasionally, particular improvised pieces will be performed in different forms at different shows, becoming more and more refined and eventually appearing on official studio studio album releases (the most recent example being "Power to Believe III", which originally existed as the stage improvisation "Deception of the Thrush", a piece played onstage for a long time before appearing on record). Influence on other bands King Crimson have been influential both on the early 1970s progressive rock movement and numerous contemporary artists. * First-wave progressive rock bands such as Genesis Genesis (band) and Yes Yes (band) were directly influenced by the band's initial style of symphonic mellotron rock, * Tool Tool (band) are widely held to have been heavily influenced by King Crimson, with their vocalist Maynard James Keenan even joking on a tour with them that "Now you know who we ripped off. Just don't tell anyone, especially the members of King Crimson." * Latterday progressive rock bands also cite King Crimson as an influence. These include Porcupine Tree have cited King Crimson as an influence. The angular, dissonant guitar patterns associated with Fripp’s distinctive approach are also evident in the music of Thrash-Metal pioneers Voivod Voivod (band) , especially in the band’s mid-period work. Voivod also did a cover of "21st Century Schizoid Man" on their 1997 recording Phobos. * Progressive metal band Dream Theater included a cover of King Crimson's "Larks Tongues In Aspic, Pt. 2" on disk 2 of the special edition of their 2009 release, Black Clouds & Silver Linings. * Also, it should be noted that the range of personell that went through the ranks of King Crimson went on to other notable bands: Greg Lake in Emerson, Lake, and Palmer; Ian Mcdonald co-founder of Foreigner; Boz Burrell in Bad Company; Bill Bruford, who came from Yes to return in 1974; and John Wetton in the supergroup Asia, which itself had members from Yes, ELP, and The Buggles. If nothing else, King Crimson was a breeding ground for talent and self expression.King Crimson has had 18 musicians pass through its ranks as full band members. Many others have collaborated with the band at various points in lyric-writing, the studio and in live performance. Most of the musicians who have been members of King Crimson had notable musical careers outside the band, to the extent that it has been calculated that there are over a thousand releases on which members and former members of King Crimson appear. Current band * Robert Fripp — guitars, guitar synthesizer/MIDI guitar, Soundscapes, electric piano, Mellotron, keyboards, allsorts (1969–present) * Adrian Belew — lead vocals, guitars, guitar synthesizer/MIDI guitar, electronic percussion (1981–present) * Tony Levin — bass guitars, Chapman Stick, upright bass, synthesizer, backing vocals (1981–1999; 2003–present) * Pat Mastelotto — acoustic and electronic drums and percussion (1994–present) * Gavin Harrison — drums (2007–present) Former members * Greg Lake — bass guitar, vocals and tambourine (1969–1970) * Michael Giles — drums, vocals (1969–1970) * Peter Giles Peter Giles (musician) — bass guitar (1970) * Ian McDonald Ian McDonald (musician) — saxophone, clarinet, flute, mellotron, vibes, vocals (1969; 1974) * Peter Sinfield — lyrics, synthesizer (1969–1971) * Mel Collins — saxophone, flute, vocals, mellotron (1970–1972; 1974) * Gordon Haskell — bass guitar, vocals (1970) * Andy McCulloch Andrew_McCulloch_(drummer) — drums (1970) * Boz Burrell — bass guitar, vocals (1971–1972) * Ian Wallace Ian Wallace (drummer) — drums, percussion, vocals (1971–1972) * John Wetton — bass guitar, vocals, occasional electric guitar and piano (1972–1974) * Jamie Muir — percussion, allsorts (1972–1973) * Bill Bruford — acoustic and electronic drums and percussion (1972–1998) * David Cross David Cross (musician) — violin, viola, flute, mellotron, electric piano, keyboards (1972–1974) * Trey Gunn — Warr guitar Warr Guitars , Chapman Stick, baritone guitar, Ashbory silicone-string bass Ashbory bass , "talker" (1994–2003) Additional/guest musicians and lyricists * Keith Tippett — acoustic and electric pianos on In The Wake Of Poseidon, Lizard and Islands * Rick Kemp — bass guitar, played for two weeks in band prior to recording of 'Islands' prior to Boz Burrell's hiring * Mark Charig — cornet on Lizard, Islands and Red (from Keith Tippett ***tet and Centipede) * Nick Evans Nick Evans (trombonist) — trombone on Lizard and Islands * Harry Miller Harry Miller (jazz bassist) — double bass on Islands * Robin Miller — oboe on Lizard, Islands and Red * Paulina Lucas — soprano vocals (Islands). * Jon Anderson — guest lead vocals on Lizard (from Yes Yes (band) ) * Eddie Jobson — violin and electric piano studio overdubs on USA * Richard Palmer-James — lyrics on Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Starless And Bible Black and Red * Margaret Belew — source text for "Indiscipline" (on Discipline) and lyrics for "Two Hands" (on Beat). (Margaret Belew was an artist and was also Adrian Belew's wife during the time of King Crimson lineup 4). Deaths of former members *Former singer and bass player Boz Burrell died on 21 September 2006 following a heart attack myocardial infarction , *Five months later, on 22 February 2007, former drummer Ian Wallace Ian Wallace (drummer) died of oesophageal cancer.* In the Court of the Crimson King (October 1969); US #28 UK #3 Gold * In the Wake of Poseidon (May 1970); US #31 UK #4 * Lizard Lizard (album) (December 1970); US #113 UK #29 * Islands Islands (King Crimson album) (December 1971); US #76 UK #30 * Larks' Tongues in Aspic Larks' Tongues in Aspic (album) (March 1973); US #61 UK #20 * Starless and Bible Black (June 1974); US #64 UK #28 * Red Red (King Crimson album) (November 1974); US #66 * Discipline Discipline (King Crimson album) (September 1981); US #45 * Beat Beat (King Crimson album) (June 1982); US #52 * Three of a Perfect Pair (March 1984); US #58 UK #30 * Thrak (April 1995); US #83 * The ConstruKction of Light (May 2000) * The Power to Believe (March 2003); US #150 Reissues In 1999, Robert Fripp collaborated with Virgin Records on a gradual reissue of the complete pre-1994 King Crimson catalogue. Various "definitive editions" followed. DGM has announced details of the first three reissues in the revamping of the King Crimson back catalogue, to be released in September and October 2009 as CD/DVDA editions. Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree has been working on these over the past year, restoring the multi-track tapes from the best possible sources, remixing the albums into 5.1 surround sound, mixing unreleased tracks and alternate takes from the master tapes for the first time, and in some cases also creating new stereo mixes that enhance the sonics of the originals significantly. All of this work has been personally overseen by Robert Fripp, who also took part in the stereo remixing. The first three titles are Red, In the Court of the Crimson King (released as close to the exact 40th anniversary of its original release as possible), and Lizard. Further reissues in the works include Thrak, with engineering by Jakko Jakszyk..
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