IT WAS 42 YEARS AGO TODAY...
Posted by
Sid Smith
on Mar 23, 2015
Larks’ Tongues In Aspic was released on this date 42 years ago.
Can you recall the day you first encountered this album? Please leave your comments on the guestbook. You can read my take on that over on the blog.
In the meantime here's what Ian McDonald, writing in the New Musical Express in March 1973 had to say about the album...
"A NICE RECORD of pleasant, middle-of-the-road music which should prove a great favourite with everybody’s mum and dad this Easter. Bill Bruford’s whistling has improved out of all recognition and Robert Fripp’s Gregorian Chant rendition of ’I Did It My Way’ cuts Joaquin Des Prez’s original stone dead.
Start again!
Sharks’ Lungs In Lemsip is, in fact, a record (in every sense) of King Crimson’s current cosmic stage-act, leaving out only the long improvisation called ’Vista Under Arc-Lights’ which comes in the middle.
The fact that the group have taken enormous trouble over the mixing of this album is not, in itself, remarkable in this age of quad, flash, and total theatre; what is remarkable, however, is their choice of mixes for.
At almost every point they have avoided the easy drama or conventional felicities most bands would be content with in favour of a sound-balance faithful to what’s actually been played – including the odd bomb here and there. And it’s in no way a literal proposition either.
This album embodies a creative reinterpretation of what a conventional rock-group should sound like in the studios, a tour-de-force of timbre and rhythm that, in the days of synthesizers and electronics, single-handedly reinstates credibility to the natural sound.
Bands lacking the technical know-how or simple inclination to set off in the direction Faust have indicated should bend an attentive ear to King Crimson. There’s a lot to be learned.
Whether you see the album as the group do – a sequence of vivid contrasts of design and sound-quality – or, like me, hear a still slightly uneasy meeting of two extremes, there’s no denying the force of the transition from the harsh intensity of Fripp City (’Easy Money’) to the windy African grassland on the outskirts of Muirsville (’The Talking Drum’).
In terms of personality, Larks’ Tongues In Aspic is throughout a respectful tension between Fripp The Composer and Muir The Performer, though to limit either to one function would be to miss the point.
Particularly outstanding from Fripp in his role as group architect are the two parts of the title track which open and close the album, the latter with its elaborately-engineered crescendoes and decrescendoes, the former with its complex and almost classical concept of organisation – echoing, dare I say it, the feel of a symphonic opening movement.
Fripp’s guitar is in the foreground to fine effect on ’Easy Money’ and runs ingeniously backwards during a brief passage on ’Book Of Saturdays’, but impresses most in the textural role, either snarling atmospherically around in the distance or chipping in as a third percussion voice.
Muir features brilliantly in his own right on a couple of tracks, but his introductions to ’Larks’ Tongues Part One’, ’The Talking Drum’, and ’Exiles’ are superb extempore compositions in themselves – particularly the last of these, performed on glass tubing.
David Cross’s violin is far more effective on record than it is, at present, onstage; both sections of ’Larks’ Tongues’ contain excellent solos from him, the quiet ’Interlude’ from the first part really standing out.
As for Bruford and Wetton, the unity and solidarity of these six performances is entirely in their hands and they don’t put a foot wrong, even throwing in some tricksy Yes-type unison work on the already complex verse of ’Easy Money’.
If there are drawbacks to this record they lie (at least for me) in the two ballads which close side one. The group obviously see them as valid contrast, apart from liking them as songs; my view is that they come over as anomalous throw-backs to an earlier, and entirely different, band.
I’m prepared to admit that this criticism merely reveals a personal blind-spot, and certainly fans of the previous versions of King Crimson will find ’Exiles’ and ’Book Of Saturdays’ the most immediately accessible of the new numbers – but the mix on the former is a little weedy anyway, and the violin sounds slightly out of tune. Nor am I overfond of the lyrics, but there aren’t that many of them so I won’t complain.
Larks’ Tongues In Aspic is a challenging record, but it’s rewards are very substantial, even if you’d have to be an odd mixture of a person to like it all without reservation. Final verdict: a classic of its kind and worth every penny of the asking price.
You know, I think old Crimso’s onto a winner here."
Can you recall the day you first encountered this album? Please leave your comments on the guestbook. You can read my take on that over on the blog.
In the meantime here's what Ian McDonald, writing in the New Musical Express in March 1973 had to say about the album...
"A NICE RECORD of pleasant, middle-of-the-road music which should prove a great favourite with everybody’s mum and dad this Easter. Bill Bruford’s whistling has improved out of all recognition and Robert Fripp’s Gregorian Chant rendition of ’I Did It My Way’ cuts Joaquin Des Prez’s original stone dead.
Start again!
Sharks’ Lungs In Lemsip is, in fact, a record (in every sense) of King Crimson’s current cosmic stage-act, leaving out only the long improvisation called ’Vista Under Arc-Lights’ which comes in the middle.
The fact that the group have taken enormous trouble over the mixing of this album is not, in itself, remarkable in this age of quad, flash, and total theatre; what is remarkable, however, is their choice of mixes for.
At almost every point they have avoided the easy drama or conventional felicities most bands would be content with in favour of a sound-balance faithful to what’s actually been played – including the odd bomb here and there. And it’s in no way a literal proposition either.
This album embodies a creative reinterpretation of what a conventional rock-group should sound like in the studios, a tour-de-force of timbre and rhythm that, in the days of synthesizers and electronics, single-handedly reinstates credibility to the natural sound.
Bands lacking the technical know-how or simple inclination to set off in the direction Faust have indicated should bend an attentive ear to King Crimson. There’s a lot to be learned.
Whether you see the album as the group do – a sequence of vivid contrasts of design and sound-quality – or, like me, hear a still slightly uneasy meeting of two extremes, there’s no denying the force of the transition from the harsh intensity of Fripp City (’Easy Money’) to the windy African grassland on the outskirts of Muirsville (’The Talking Drum’).
In terms of personality, Larks’ Tongues In Aspic is throughout a respectful tension between Fripp The Composer and Muir The Performer, though to limit either to one function would be to miss the point.
Particularly outstanding from Fripp in his role as group architect are the two parts of the title track which open and close the album, the latter with its elaborately-engineered crescendoes and decrescendoes, the former with its complex and almost classical concept of organisation – echoing, dare I say it, the feel of a symphonic opening movement.
Fripp’s guitar is in the foreground to fine effect on ’Easy Money’ and runs ingeniously backwards during a brief passage on ’Book Of Saturdays’, but impresses most in the textural role, either snarling atmospherically around in the distance or chipping in as a third percussion voice.
Muir features brilliantly in his own right on a couple of tracks, but his introductions to ’Larks’ Tongues Part One’, ’The Talking Drum’, and ’Exiles’ are superb extempore compositions in themselves – particularly the last of these, performed on glass tubing.
David Cross’s violin is far more effective on record than it is, at present, onstage; both sections of ’Larks’ Tongues’ contain excellent solos from him, the quiet ’Interlude’ from the first part really standing out.
As for Bruford and Wetton, the unity and solidarity of these six performances is entirely in their hands and they don’t put a foot wrong, even throwing in some tricksy Yes-type unison work on the already complex verse of ’Easy Money’.
If there are drawbacks to this record they lie (at least for me) in the two ballads which close side one. The group obviously see them as valid contrast, apart from liking them as songs; my view is that they come over as anomalous throw-backs to an earlier, and entirely different, band.
I’m prepared to admit that this criticism merely reveals a personal blind-spot, and certainly fans of the previous versions of King Crimson will find ’Exiles’ and ’Book Of Saturdays’ the most immediately accessible of the new numbers – but the mix on the former is a little weedy anyway, and the violin sounds slightly out of tune. Nor am I overfond of the lyrics, but there aren’t that many of them so I won’t complain.
Larks’ Tongues In Aspic is a challenging record, but it’s rewards are very substantial, even if you’d have to be an odd mixture of a person to like it all without reservation. Final verdict: a classic of its kind and worth every penny of the asking price.
You know, I think old Crimso’s onto a winner here."
