Red (King Crimson) - Extended Play Lounge (Episode 11)
Added 2022-01-03 18:13:44 +0000 UTCUnlisted Vimeo Link: https://vimeo.com/662001076/eeea85ae3e
For our first Extended Play Lounge Episode of 2022, we're listening to Red by King Crimson. This album won the poll, and I was fascinated by the heaviness and the expert musicianship that exudes from this classic album. Come along for the ride!
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Comments
"Fracture" is all composed, man. Maybe you're thinking of the track before that one.
Michael Hudson
2024-09-21 21:49:11 +0000 UTCA first listen to this album for me, although I am very familiar with "Starless", which is heartbreakingly melancholy and beautiful at the same time. Ive aleays found them to be a little "far beyond" musically...and shoed away from looking too deeply into their back catalogue. I saw them live a few years back with the amazing 3 drummer set up, and I am of casual acquaintance with Jakko Jakszyk, who was the local musician of legend growing up in Watford, widely accepted as the most talented guy in the musical community back then. It's a good album, the improv bit left me a bit cold bit the rest is really cool. A footnote: Jakszyk was married to Amanda Giles, daughter of Michael Giles, one of KC'S founder members. There's a really interesting version of "Starless" by the English folk duo The Unthanks, which you can listen to here: https://youtu.be/MTEqXH9dB2g?si=crsyQ7jgNE2Mmvld
Ralph Darvill
2024-06-21 09:48:47 +0000 UTCAnd I can't tell you how happy I am to finally get to watch this with you.
Robert Thornton
2024-03-29 22:00:24 +0000 UTCThis might be my favorite King Crimson album.
Robert Thornton
2024-03-29 21:30:56 +0000 UTCEasily my favorite album from them and one more red nightmare is my favorite song by them. :)
Wolverale12
2024-02-23 00:04:31 +0000 UTCThe song Providence is actually 100 % improvized. That's a live recording from Providence, RI done before David Cross had left the band.
Sammeli S
2023-12-08 16:12:47 +0000 UTCHow this album eluded me for so long, I have no idea. Just recently purchased and it is my fave KC now. Always loved Starless and Bible Black, and don’t know why I never moved on to this one. Bruford’s drumming is phenomenal, and never heard Wetton’s bass sound so fierce…. Looking forward to seeing Doug’s reaction!!
Steve Hartke
2023-08-12 06:00:44 +0000 UTCI have heard this song hundreds of times but I always finds new thing. May I suggest you play Larks Tongues in Aspic part IV and The Deception of Thrush. This two songs are from a completely different era but musically they are brilliant.
Mats Carlsson
2023-06-30 14:46:21 +0000 UTCOK, one more and I'll stop- the other 'Red' reference was the input needles on a mixing board going into the red, as pictured on the back cover.
Tom (the soggy one)
2023-04-06 00:58:48 +0000 UTCAlso, the band wasn't speaking to each other (or the recently fired David Cross) during production, so an extended filler was likely necessary. The cover photo is actually three separate photos assembled to look like one.
Tom (the soggy one)
2023-04-06 00:57:44 +0000 UTCMy buddy and I referred to Providence (and Fracture, etc.) as the KC 'noodling' pieces. Pretty much one on every album, usually filler for not having quite enough formal recordings for a full album.
Tom (the soggy one)
2023-04-06 00:55:03 +0000 UTCThe surprise jingle at the end of Red and Starless is the DGM logo ident, so not part of the album. A marvellous set of musics.
George Davis-Stewart
2023-03-15 23:36:56 +0000 UTCConversely, KC is very much an improvising band for whom there may be hit and miss, but just padding out an album was not the name of their game.
George Davis-Stewart
2023-03-15 18:58:26 +0000 UTCProvidence is an improvisation that was recorded in Providence, Rhode Island. Crimson had a habit of never having enough new material for their studio albums. For Starless and Bible Black and Red they took some live improvisations removed the live audience an popped it on the album. Fracture from Starless and Bible Black is also a live recording but is not an improv.
patrick valencia
2022-02-13 16:37:39 +0000 UTCThat note on Starless, by the way, where you correctly say he's playing the same note on two adjacent strings and which has been noted above that it's a slightly bent string, it is down a microtone and I was wondering how that would be notated.
Chris Ramsbottom
2022-02-02 20:05:36 +0000 UTCHow interesting! January 13th is my husband's birthday too! He's more of a Camel/Genesis/Yes/Floyd fan, I include Crimson in my pantheon of prog bands but he doesn't sadly.
Chris Ramsbottom
2022-02-01 20:24:11 +0000 UTCBruford just stated a YouTube channel a few days ago with a lot of treasures. One video that was very good was a lecture that he gave to the University of Edinbugh on the topic creativity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FSQlbVD_tU
Edward Malthouse
2022-01-17 01:49:59 +0000 UTCDoug, I entered into a Conversation, an hour ago with Friend, Professional Violinist Charles Townsend (Sun Ra...), to that Arc, Robert Fripp had been on - that of Despair (--Thematically), leading up to Red. I think you will treasure the following Interview to that "Arc", as well as to aspects of Note, you noted, witnessed, in reviewing 'Red', and to my earlier here suggestion that you might want to cover the two previous King Crimson Albums prior to Red's Manifestation. Bon Voyage Brother, its a very good Reading. The Scholar and Argonaut within you will enjoy the Following - https://www.elephant-talk.com/wiki/Interview_with_Robert_Fripp_by_Stephe_Pritchard_and_Thos._Brooman_for_Recorder_Three
Michael Hernandez
2022-01-14 02:17:07 +0000 UTCAlso, the reasoning behind including the Improv on a studio album is two-fold. One, it's representative of King Crimson, and in particular this lineup, and two, they didn't have enough composed material. Bill Bruford complained to Robert once that he would only bring 3 or 4 composed (or partially composed) pieces to rehearsals/recording sessions. Robert lamented that while everybody else had time off, he had to spend the time composing new pieces, and thus didn't get the same vacations as the others. So the Improvs were used to fill the rest of the space. Like a number of bands of the era (Pink Floyd comes to mind), King Crimson tended to play songs live first and let them evolve before recording them, although Red is entirely new songs except Starless which had been played for the entirety of the 1974 tours. Starless and Bible Black they tried a new approach, using live performances, removing the audience, and sometimes adding overdubs. The Nightwatch from that album starts with a live performance and is spliced to a studio recording. We'll Let You Know, Trio, and Starless and Bible Black are live improvs with the audience removed and some editing. The Mincer is an improv with overdubs, including a new vocal. The tape ran out in the middle of the improv, so that's where the new song ends. Fracture is a composed piece, live with a few overdubs. Great Deceiver and Lament are the only all studio track on that album. So Red was a move back to a more straightforward studio album, but they still needed more material (and they thought Providence was a very strong improv). Their second album in the '80s (Beat) also used an improv, albeit a studio one, due to lack of enough composed material.
Randy Hammill
2022-01-08 02:48:05 +0000 UTCI couldn't constrain myself. I kept seeing KC pop up in the comments, and I used to mock that band because it was so brainless and infantile. So to entertain the notion that the two were one struck me as humorous. No need for nightmares. :)
MrWondrous David Beckwith
2022-01-07 20:57:31 +0000 UTCThat's hilarious, David ... I'm so very glad that it's not true. KC is short for their founder's name Harry Casey, i.e., KC. I had to look it up as a pre-emptive strike against possible nightmares.
Rick Morse
2022-01-07 20:50:56 +0000 UTCPeople used to complain that KC was always so dark, like Kansas City even, and so to fix matters Fripp started KC & the Sunshine Band, and then played only happy bubblegum music for kids on the upslope of the Bell Curve. Granted this is only a theory I'm currently entertaining. That said...thanks for the insightful comments, most of which I had not considered in the many decades of enjoying this record. Fellow fans had insightful comments too, since only smart people listen to King Crimson.
MrWondrous David Beckwith
2022-01-05 12:04:24 +0000 UTCAccording to Mr. Fripp, King Crimson was born on January 13, which also happens to be my own birthday, but also the birthday of Georges Gurdjieff, who was, in some ways, Fripp's mentor. It is also the day James Joyce and my own beloved father died. Quite by synchronicity, Gurdjieff and Joyce joined my father as major influences in my own life, so I notice 1/13s. On 1/3 at 1:13 you posted this video. Just sayin'. Another commenter had also mentioned 13 and the time sig of a song.
MrWondrous David Beckwith
2022-01-05 11:55:52 +0000 UTCHi Doug...great album to do and was an even pick from me with Discipline....by the way, the little ditty at the end you referred to twice is not by the band...having heard the album many, many times, it is not part of the album. Looking forward to your review of Discipline as a completely different sound and vibe, yet still typically unique King Crimson (with Bill Bruford & Robert Fripp the only ones returning after Red).
Paul Hoyle
2022-01-04 15:53:51 +0000 UTCGreat to see your appreciation of Red. A dark but great album. King Crimson and Yes are my all-time favorite bands and I really enjoy your reactions to their music. As stated by others: band-improvisations are a key element in KC's music. I don't know all of them, but to me two of them which you haven't heard so far stand out: Trio, on Starless and Bible Black and Asbury Park, on USA, a great live album from the Wetton/Bruford era. Btw, USA and Yessongs are my two favorite live albums. If you want to discover more of King Crimson, my route would be Discipline, THRAK and The Power To Believe. With those albums you can cover the main steps in their musical developement. Thereafter you could pick any album they released inbetween.
Frits van Voorst
2022-01-04 09:12:07 +0000 UTCYes! I was thinking the same! After Doug finishes the King Crimson catalogue.
Joseph Riordan
2022-01-04 06:57:04 +0000 UTCDoug, though I love Discipline, I think you would best be served by reviewing Starless and Bible Black, and finish off this Manifestation of King Crimson with Larks Tongue in Aspic. You will then, Doug, see to the Arc of what informed Red.
Michael Hernandez
2022-01-04 03:34:23 +0000 UTCI hope you do Discipline next also, there are some very "interesting" and unique songs on there too.
Eric Schilling
2022-01-04 02:41:48 +0000 UTCLove the hd600s glad to see you upgraded to a higher quality of audio. Unless your camera is inverted i think they're on backwards tho. Gotta say i love king crimson and I hope you keep coming back to them regardless the album (though I prefer their early work) also if you haven't heard of them maybe you should check out ayreon they've got great sounds cool melodies and most (if not all) of their albums are concept pieces
Olivier Ouellet
2022-01-04 02:33:31 +0000 UTCGlad to see you with Sennheiser's! I would like to believe my suggestion at least 5 months ago was heeded?
Glenn Wimberly
2022-01-04 02:28:05 +0000 UTCHi Doug! Hope that with u going with Discipline next, doesnt mean you skip larks tongues in aspic, wich is by far my favorite album, its Fantastic!!
Daniel Gandour
2022-01-04 00:02:43 +0000 UTCWhen (hopefully!) you make it to Lizard and Islands, you'll hear a lot more of oboist Robin Miller. As I learned much later, he was, for a time, principal oboist for the BBC symphony orchestra under Pierre Boulez. My dad was an oboist, and when I played Lizard Suite for him (back in the mid 70's) he was very complimentary of the oboist, and even said he wasn't sure he'd even know how to finger the high notes during Bolero.
Scot Poland
2022-01-03 23:56:52 +0000 UTCJeez, you could set a clock by Bruford's playing. He's just magnificent on this.
Peter Tutak
2022-01-03 23:47:48 +0000 UTCOh and yes, in Starless Robert is playing adjacent strings, one on the note, and the other one bending up to the note to get the different tone and slight variations on the note.
Randy Hammill
2022-01-03 23:05:54 +0000 UTCThanks, as always Doug! Bruford steals this record all the way through. When I hear Providence, I see David Lynch's Eraserhead, sucks all of the oxygen from the space, suffocating. I'm confident you are going to love Discipline.
Anthony Taylor
2022-01-03 22:51:09 +0000 UTCRED always meant seeing red for me. And Doug remember flying is easy, it's the landings that are tricky!
Jim Reeves
2022-01-03 22:49:06 +0000 UTCAn attempt to revive King Crimson, but Robert declined. So Bruford and Wetton decided that each of them would bring in another artist to fill out the band. Bruford brought Holdsworth and Wetton brought Jobson.
Randy Hammill
2022-01-03 21:52:33 +0000 UTCYes. It's an interesting book. He started the project as his dissertation for his Musicology doctorate, although Fripp convinced him to write about Brian Eno instead. Eric made it available on the internet for free once it was out of print. You can get it from the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20080330012511/http://www.progressiveears.com/frippbook/ The Eno book is also available here: https://web.archive.org/web/20080324142514/http://www.erictamm.com/tammeno.html
Randy Hammill
2022-01-03 21:48:00 +0000 UTCYep, Bruford wrote the bass riff on the piano.
Randy Hammill
2022-01-03 21:45:41 +0000 UTCAs has been noted, Providence is a live improvisation. It was typical for each live lineup of Crimson to primarily play material written by/for that lineup. To flesh out the performance, they would perform improvisations. This started with the first lineup in '69, with Moonchild being a studio improv in that vein. When the 1972 lineup convened, with Bruford, Wetton, Fripp, David Cross on violin, and Jamie Muir on percussion and drums, a stated aim was to blur the line between composed and improvised pieces. The first show (which was bootlegged, now available from DGM, consisted of about 40 minutes of new songs, and over an hour of improvisations, none of which the audience had ever heard before. The added 21st Century Schizoid Man as an encore, but for that first tour nothing else had been heard. By the final tour, just prior to Red, they had two albums worth of material, plus the as-yet unreleased song Starless, and the sets varied in length, so the improvs were shorter and formed less of the set. At full headlining shows, there were typically two of a good length. Providence is taken from the penultimate show of the lineup (Jamie Muir left in Jan '73, leaving the 4-piece). The full version was about 2 minutes longer, and there was a second, 16-minute improv at the same show. Both are stellar. The improvs themselves are somewhat unusual. Unlike the jazz tradition, where the band vamps and a soloist improvises, these are full band improvs. They often start with some tentative ambient soundscapes as somebody starts, and somebody else listens (or not) and so on. By this time, they tended to be dominated by Bruford and Wetton as they got going. Fripp compared playing with them like playing with a brick wall. Multiple members have commented that without Muir, the balance was upset within the band, and the improvs got heavier and darker, with Wetton refusing to turn down, and Bruford often impatient to get going. Fripp could keep up, but the violin wasn't able to, and Cross would often stick with Mellotron or electric piano. In Providence, Cross starts, and Wetton's feedbacked volume swells start. Fripp is playing the Mellotron on the flute setting. As things pick up, Fripp switches to guitar. In many of the improvs, it's easy to mistake some of Cross' distorted violin or electric piano as guitar. For a lot of Crimson fans, it's the improvs that are the real heart of the band, and the '72-'74 lineup is the one that pushed the limits farther than probably anybody else at that time.
Randy Hammill
2022-01-03 21:45:19 +0000 UTCWe need a Doug X Rob Fripp interview!
Toonimated
2022-01-03 21:35:20 +0000 UTCThe track where they were improvising/jamming and you weren't sure where they were going. Re-listen to Bill Bruford. He joined King Crimson from Yes to be more jazzy and innovative. Here, he's doing just so. Hope this helps.
Andrew Wingham
2022-01-03 21:34:59 +0000 UTCI totally agree, but I would go one further and suggest that he does the Discipline trilogy over 3 months. Then Doug might see and hear just how good this incarnation of the band was, in my mind they were the best King Crimson lineup.
Trev
2022-01-03 21:33:42 +0000 UTCUnited Kingdom Don't forget Doug, they were writing for a younger audience with dischordant minds
Andrew Wingham
2022-01-03 21:32:19 +0000 UTCWell done. You know, I listen to this now with all its harmonic and rhythmic complexities and am amazed how I could have appreciated it as much as I did it when I was 13. BTW, the idea to play the middle section of “Starless” in 13 was Dr. Bruford’s contribution to the song.
Martin Broten
2022-01-03 21:10:00 +0000 UTCHi Doug, Fripp invented Frippatronics soundscaping. Check out the youtube and search Frippatronics, there should be 5 or 6 from 1979 to 1986.
John Gamesby
2022-01-03 21:05:46 +0000 UTCWould definitely recommend checking out Discipline as your next KC album. The next album chronologically after Red, and with a totally different lineup and totally different sound, and way more “fun” than this album.
Matt Conte
2022-01-03 20:56:52 +0000 UTCThis is great and you can make the move to the genius of Discipline (Robert Fripp as human metronome) or follow John Wetton to Viva! Roxy Music which is another must hear entirely album ...
Stop Propaganda
2022-01-03 20:42:22 +0000 UTCI have always viewed Red as a Robert Fripp album compromised to suit the current band format, Exposure is his most impressive consistent piece of work and explores many similar styles but with a wider variety of contributors. I haven't heard the reaction to the fantastic 'In the Court of the Crimson King' Steve Wilson's remaster of this album is nothing short of magnificent
Itsfun2listen
2022-01-03 20:29:22 +0000 UTCDoug, you are correct about the 'two string' theory playing the same note. Now that there are two guitarists in the band they play it live by each guitarist taking one of the notes. By the way if you're looking into playing other KC albums/songs in the future, keep one thing in mind...they are a moving target. Very few of their albums bear any resemblance to any other album. Very restless band, always searching for new ways of doing things while still engaging the audience.
Fred Beaulieu
2022-01-03 20:11:01 +0000 UTCKurt Cobain cited Red as a major influence.
Peter Wethman
2022-01-03 20:10:38 +0000 UTCAnd Bill's second solo album One of a Kind which features guitarist Allan Holdsworth, bassist Jeff Berlin, and keyboardist Dave Stewart.
Dennis Rees
2022-01-03 20:04:19 +0000 UTCSince you are a fan of BIll Bruford, you might consider the album UK by the band UK (Bill Bruford, John Wetton on bass and vocals, Allan Holdsworth on guitar, Eddie Jobson, Eddie Jobson on violin and keyboards:
Dennis Rees
2022-01-03 20:01:30 +0000 UTCI wonder if that's not part of the playlist app. I've never heard those either on LP or CD
grnmntl
2022-01-03 19:57:02 +0000 UTCyes
grnmntl
2022-01-03 19:55:02 +0000 UTCDoug I have no idea what those little piano/synth motives are at the end of Red and Starless but rest assured they aren't part of the actual recordings!
Gary Thobaben
2022-01-03 19:39:40 +0000 UTCI've been listening to this album for years and I've never looked at the whole picture as you described. Makes sense though. Wetton's bass tone is totally badass. RIP, Mr. Wetton. On another note, I also feel the same about flying. The feeling that my life is dangling thousands of feet in the air and the constant feeling of a horrifying death being a constant possibility is terrifying. I'm glad you got to experience this one, Doug. As Mark above said, I'd love to see your reaction to Discipline. Great album with a totally new lineup (aside from Fripp and Bruford). Cheers.
Bryan Sheehan
2022-01-03 19:36:20 +0000 UTCFor lovers of Fripp and King Crimson, there is a book Called Robert Fripp From King Crimson to Guitar Craft by Eric Tamm details of KC albums etc.
Michael Brown
2022-01-03 19:24:07 +0000 UTCAlso, "Providence" is in fact a live improvisation, from a gig in Providence, RI. The full version of the improv can be heard on The Great Deceiver, a box set of live recordings from the Fripp/Wetton/Bruford/Cross band.
Matthew Weber
2022-01-03 19:03:01 +0000 UTCMy favorite King Crimson album! Such a great sound, still sounds modern to this day. Well, more or less.
Arne Martin Aurlien
2022-01-03 18:45:46 +0000 UTCThe title track makes me suspect Fripp had been listening to the Bartok quartets.
Matthew Weber
2022-01-03 18:38:04 +0000 UTCAwesome! Just a note...Discipline should be your next KC Extended play.
Mark Saxon
2022-01-03 18:37:02 +0000 UTC
