“A bit more guitar!” says Phil Collins as he prepares to go through another take of what would turn out to be Disengage. It’s a barbed kind of riff which the players are still getting to grips with as John Wetton’s “I can’t remember the beginning” comment indicates. “No worries” says Fripp has he shows his old band mate the introduction before he counts the three of them in.
One part surgical precision and two parts blunt object, had 1974’s incarnation of Crimson continued this track may not have been a million miles away from what they might have sounded like.
Consisting of four different takes of the same track, we get to hear the anatomy of Disengage as it begins to breath and stretch. It’s interesting to hear each musicians trying out little experiments, pockets, retreats and chancing the occasional headlong thrust as the temperature rises or the inclination takes them.
Not all of it us quite yet under their fingertips so we hear the musicians listening to the parts, their own groove, and the others in the room - though not always in that order. And how about that brief break-out solo from Robert on version 2. Phew! Never mind what might have been - here it is!
