Asbury Park is a name known to most King Crimson fans as the location where a magical act of improvisation took place in 1974 as King Crimson travelled on the road to Red. 22 years after that particular night, Fripp and Bruford return with the Double Trio.
The improvisation on this occasion is bookended between the crunching THRAK themes. As Fripp carpet bombs the space with an array of caustic chords, trickling of notes spill out from Belew’s guitar, weaving its way through the intermittent salvos and Levin’s bowed bass.
Gunn’s bass-end Stick work vies for a sliver of space which eventually appears some four minutes into the piece before being subsumed beneath a wave of drums and percussion. After those dense clusters, bursts of piano, industrial grit, and shards of abstruse activity, the imposing THRAK theme looms up like a harbour wall in mist providing a form of austere shelter after all that choppy water.
On a much lighter note, you can hear the laughter from several Crims after they hit the end of a particularly nimble version of Indiscipline as Adrian’s quick-on-the-draw recitation of his lyrics threatens to wrong-foot his colleagues waiting for their cues.
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