In the Wake of Poseidon (King Crimson) | Extended Play Lounge Ep. 76
Added 2024-09-17 22:40:55 +0000 UTCI'm pleased to continue my exploration of music by King Crimson. In today's Episode, we're listening to KC's 2nd album from 1970, In the Wake of Poseidon. Overall, I think I liked it a bit more than In the Court of the Crimson King. And, it was great to hear more songs sung by Greg Lake! I hope you enjoy!
Comments
The lyrics on Peace an end is pure poetry and strike me as it did to you. It is the way to end an album like that. I enjoyed your commentaries and reactions, just as always.
David Valero
2025-07-01 00:30:32 +0000 UTCThe Devil’s Triangle took me a long time to enjoy fully, always liked the build up of the Mars theme though!
David Edinborough
2025-04-24 04:39:25 +0000 UTCDiscipline might've been the album that introduced me to King Crimson, but In the Wake is what made me a King Crimson fan.
Peep Gravy
2024-09-30 14:33:16 +0000 UTCListening to your discussion of Poseidon, and the fear his power over the sea and earth can inflict, right now in the wake of Helene is pretty disturbing. If we needed a reminder of the power of "Poseidon," well...we got it.
Jeff Norman
2024-09-29 04:02:33 +0000 UTChetfield already pointed out the strong parallelism in the structure of album 1 and album 2. i think this holds in particular for the respective sides 1: 1st a song full of aggression and desperation, then a very sweet/soft/peaceful song, and finally a majestic/bombastic sound dominated by the mellotron. i believe this parallelism can be broken down even to single musical motifs, and doug is probably the right person to actually pinpoint that down ( for me it is just a vague intuitive feeling without any formal backing).
Burkhard Duenweg
2024-09-21 11:55:55 +0000 UTCVery powerful reflections Peter. Thank you.
Adie
2024-09-19 10:37:45 +0000 UTCI think Fripp was emulating the Ian MacDonald approach on this 2nd album: Mellotron layers to create a dissolution of what are real instruments and synthetic instruments (which is ubiquitous today, albeit on software rather than hardware); electro-acoustic composition; parody; overdub construction; extreme shifts in mood from song to song. The results are still compelling; however, side 1 a mere template of the first album. But Fripp proved to be a capable composer/arranger, not just a guitarist.
Guitar Channel
2024-09-19 05:42:31 +0000 UTCI pulled my headphones away, knowing what was coming. Like a horror movie, I was yelling at my computer screen, 'Don't turn it up, Doug!". Alas...
Tom (the soggy one)
2024-09-18 23:31:31 +0000 UTCOnce again I must acknowledge the greater wisdom of this community - I voted for Beat, and it is clear this album was the right choice. Also, once again, I am brought to listen afresh to an album that I put to one side a long time ago, and find it to be a far better album than I remember. I think this is because I now listen to it without reference to the previous album i.e. an album taken only on its own terms. Having said that, I still think it is a step down from ITCOTCK. Despite all its beauty, it has less power than ITCOTCK, but because of this EPL I will listen to this album again to appreciate it all the more.
Adie
2024-09-18 22:27:05 +0000 UTC…and not forgetting that most unlikely of prequels, The Cheerful Insanity Of Giles,Giles and Fripp from 1968 😄 As for The 21st CSB, RF was something of a mentor to Jakko, who also had Michael Giles for a father-in-law at the time; the band’s repertoire demonstrated a strong appetite for the early KC material and the final regeneration of that band fully embraced its earliest work. Not that you weren’t aware of most of this already…
George Davis-Stewart
2024-09-18 20:07:54 +0000 UTCAs soon as you turned it up, I think we all were expecting the jump scare 🤪
Potted Rodent
2024-09-18 14:53:13 +0000 UTCDoug, could do with a look at the Crimson side project of McDonald and Giles which was the name of the album released by them after leaving Crimson in 1970. Much of the album follows the Crimson template but not as dark. Also, it is worth checking out Crimson doing Cat Food on Top Of The Pops in 1970, as they had released it as a single. It has Greg Lake front and centre. Another interesting diversion is the 21st Century Schizoid Band, which has Peter and Michael Giles, Mel Collins, Ian McDonald, sometimes Ian Wallace and future Crimson member Jakko Jakszyk recreating many of Crimsons classics, but also a handful of new material, there are 4 albums of material, mostly live.
Paul
2024-09-18 10:31:57 +0000 UTCSame here, excellent music, but Mars brings it down due to its issues Doug immediately adressed. Similar to what I thought of it hearing it first time about 40 years ago, already been very deep in the Holst suite.
Frank H
2024-09-18 08:40:23 +0000 UTCThis how to make use of 2 mellotrons on stage.
Frank H
2024-09-18 08:25:01 +0000 UTCThe 69 Crimson (Ian MD, Greg, Mike, Bob, Pete) did Mars as closing of the set. The 71 Crimson (Mel, Ian W, Boz, Bob, Pete) used it as well as closing, but dropped it end of the year.
Frank H
2024-09-18 08:23:02 +0000 UTCLoved your reaction Doug, to this record I know so well. But you added another layer to it and that’s the value of your take on these records. The seventies were really something, in terms of musical exploration. I noticed you made the same mistake almost everybody does at the beginning: cranking the volume up :-). Pink Floyd repeated that shock effect on side one of The Wall.
Frits van Voorst
2024-09-18 07:10:57 +0000 UTCI think this album is a transition from In the Court to the next two, Lizard and Islands, which are much more jazzy. I voted for Islands on this poll and I really think you'll dig Islands a lot. I had fun listening to this one too, I don't listen to it that much but there are great pieces on it. I think they did the experimental stuff better on their debut IMHO. Like you, I'm not a huge fan of The Devil's Triangle. Love that cat stepping in on piano though :)
Jean-Michel LaFontaine
2024-09-18 05:49:15 +0000 UTCFripp also described Tippett's playing as a cat walking on keys with the exception that he actually knows what he's doing
Hetfield Ninno Davide
2024-09-18 04:14:51 +0000 UTCMars was in the repertoire of the original KC lineup, in a more direct form, absent the objections of the Holst estate who prevented them from putting it on a record. The performance linked below was the final song from the final live performance of the first KC, at Fillmore West in '69. People think of Mellotrons as "pretty", a reasonable thought if you've heard ITCOTCK, and how the Moody Blues and Genesis used them. This is different. By the end, the savagery of the mellotrons is quite something to hear. KC didn't perform live again until the Islands band started touring in the spring of '71, and early on they were including Mars in the setlist again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cmn3HudRuc
Scot Poland
2024-09-18 04:01:17 +0000 UTCSinfield's solo record "Still" has an entire song about this, called Whole Food Boogie.
Scot Poland
2024-09-18 03:34:03 +0000 UTCTotally grooning to this, Doug. I've had "Cat Food" as an earworm since you opened the poll.
Tom (the soggy one)
2024-09-18 02:44:06 +0000 UTCSame guy also got me hooked on Simon and Garfunkel and The Go-Gos. Very eclectic kids, we were.
Tom (the soggy one)
2024-09-18 02:40:47 +0000 UTCHeading off to freshman year at Hanover College in fall of 1984, I was then a big Rick Wakeman fan, and had just gotten into Yes. Then the guy in the next room at the dorm introduces me to King Crimson with "Young Person's Guide to King Crimson". Wow. Soon there would be trips into Madison, Indiana (the next 'big' town) and the new/used record store where I bought them out of used KC an new Rush (also the guy next door) and a VERY well-worn copy of " McDonald and Giles" for a whole dollar. This was in the stash, though it took me a bit to get to it; as I started with Crimson King, Red and the newly-released Three of a Perfect Pair. Thanks, Doug, for the cliche trip down memory lane.
Tom (the soggy one)
2024-09-18 02:39:53 +0000 UTCPeter, I appreciate all of your words. The context is helpful. This music is so smart! Really profound.
R. Douglas Helvering
2024-09-18 01:40:38 +0000 UTCCat Food is, indeed, about processed food. Pete was a hippie. LOVE Cat Food. You're the first I've ever seen mention the cat walking on the keys. I've always thought of it that way.
Kathy Ratino
2024-09-18 01:15:33 +0000 UTCThanks for this Doug , was really happy and anticipating it (I always love it when a King Crimson EPL Poll comes up :D). This album is sort of a "sequel" to ITCOTCK , the two albums share an almost identical structure but the little "Peace" instrumentals give it a unique feel and circularity (alongside the genius sample of "In the court" in "The Devil's Triangle" track). It's a lot less desperate and dark than the first album , jazzier more sophisticated and with a bit of humor in it , it is a search for Peace from all the chaos and madness of our world in contrast with the alienation coming from the first album. They go together very well and it leads beautifully into "Lizard" which I adore and would be very happy for you to do Side 1 of it as you said. The final "Peace" track has got to be one of the most emotional and gorgeous "1 minute songs" of all times. Always raising the bar a bit higher , that's the keyword with Crims ;) .
Hetfield Ninno Davide
2024-09-18 01:00:26 +0000 UTCThis is probably the first time in almost 40 years that I've listened to this album all the way through, and it brought back a lot of feelings and emotions, *especially* the title track, in its all its sumptuous melancholy. When this came out, it was a very trying, unsure time for many of us. We were being summoned to fight, and risk dying in, a war we didn't believe in. Our eyes were being opened to the ecology, and an environment suffering from our own collective neglect. Social unrest in our own country threatened to rip it apart. Nations starved in Africa. Sinfield's lyrics in the title track painted a Bosch-like, "Garden of Earthly Delights" for the modern day - frightening and damning imagery we could pick apart and understand, and the chaos left behind in Poseidon's (who I always thought was an analogy for mankind) wake was to be our legacy to make do with. The music enfolded that message of doom and damnation in atmospheres ranging from the desolate and questioning to gloriously chilling and evilly imperious. Sinfield posits: This is the world on the scales. This is how the world is changing and where we're heading. Poseidon was a tremendously powerful album for me and others, and maybe some of what I've said here will illuminate that a bit in light of some of your questions about it. Thanks so much for visiting it, and brushing away the cobwebs from some very profound music.
Peter Tutak
2024-09-18 00:19:29 +0000 UTCLove it! I once was allowed to sing Peace from the top of the rotunda of my family church at a childrens service. At the time I thought it was so subversive!
Jim Reeves
2024-09-18 00:12:27 +0000 UTCGreat review. I especially loved that last song. So profound and beautiful 😍 I also liked cat food 😻
The Nanny named Fran
2024-09-17 23:20:15 +0000 UTCBeen waiting for this all day, can't wait to see your reaction to Devil's Triangle!
casper vestergaard
2024-09-17 22:43:14 +0000 UTC
