King Crimson - 'Starless and Bible Black' (Polydor)

Where did the time go? 2018 is not looking like it will match 2017 in terms of Underbite posting productivity. Sorry about that. So, skipping ahead a few, we're into the good Crimson shit now. The lineup has almost completely changed; Greg Lake is out, John Wetton is the new vocalist, and David Cross (no, not the Mr. Show guy) takes care of the non-power trio instruments (viola/violin and keyboards). Bill Bruford is a hell of an upgrade on Michael Giles, and the overall vibe is darker, more cutting, and fierce. Even when singing about ice-cream cones and the devil, it never gets silly as progressive rock often does, and this is progressive rock to a tee. Fripp's guitar tone is sharp, metallic and buzzing, and flashy without being clichéd - he genuinely doesn't sound like any other guitar player I can think of. Even when he rips into a searing, chorus-laden lead line (such as in 'The Night Watch') it feels like it can only be compared to Fripp's other work as it attains a fluidity that I don't remember Yes, ELP, etc having in their sound. Bruford, like all good prog drummers, has clearly studied jazz, and he's an anchor who grounds everything, occasionally poking his way to the foreground but not in a 'solo' way. He's mixed up high enough to be an audible centre when the rest of the band starts to focus on circular, instrumental aggression (such as the end of 'Lament'); they show that collectively, they can just as easily shift into the sneaky improvisations hinted at towards the end of their first album. If later period King Crimson has a reputation of being joyless, they're still having fun here, and the ren-faire trappings have been shaken off. There's still a dedicated lyricist as there was from the beginning, a decision that seems almost admirable. Listening to this now, I keep thinking of the time-signature obsessed wave of indie post-rock in the 90s, following in the wake of Slint and Bitch Magnet and those types of bands. Those bands would have never had vocals like this, but many of the harder surfaces on Starless must have inspired some of them. Fripp's guitar sometimes does the two-hand tap thing, while sometimes is just like a grinding machine (listen to the opening cut, 'The Great Deceiver', for immediate evidence of that), which could be a Don Caballero texture. But there's a tendency towards pure beauty here, which is an admirable one, even if one may not feel that they attain it. Moments of Starless are utterly gorgeous, like the shimmering percussive sheen at the beginning of 'The Night Watch', the way it resolves to silence, and then segues into 'Trio', which is straight and almost neo-classical. The longer pieces on the second side struggle to hold my attentions, but this along with Larks Tongues prove to be the King Crimson records for a 'casual' fan; if only I can remember to listen to it more often.

King Crimson - 'In the Court of the Crimson King' (Atlantic)

Whoa, I still have this? And it still bears the $2.99 price tag from when I grabbed it, a distinct memory during my college years, the only decent record in an otherwise worthless store if I recall correctly. I took what's a fairly standard path through 'punk' and out the other side - King Crimson were a symbol of ridiculous bombast and awfulness to me in high school, as by that point the Belew years had turned them into a symbol of overly technical, emotionless music for intelligent white men that likely have some social problems. (Whether that's true or not, I dunno; I suspect that a reevaluation of 80s Crimson through today's ears would be significantly more positive in outlook.) Then I got into experimental music, eventually looking back toward progressive sounds from the 70s, and then Crimson is a force you have to reckon with. For me, Fripp's work with Eno came first (not so much the full collaborations but even just that hot-shit solo on 'St. Elmo's Fire'); then, the Giles, Giles and Fripp record. Eventually, I wound up hearing Larks Tongues in Aspic and admitting that, yes, King Crimson had some undeniably cool material. And this all started here, their debut, which sounds a lot more like Genesis than the percussive time signature journeys on Larks or Red. The last time I played this record, which was likely the only time, my verdict was that In The Court of the Crimson King was an uneasy mix; mid-tempo prog-pop built around flutes + epic male vocals for the most part, not bad but not earth-shattering – and then the infallible power of '21st Century Schizoid Man'. It's been covered and parodied a bunch (Unrest comes to mind but I'm sure there's others) but when I put this on on a snowy February morning in Helsinki, I had to crank it and jump around the room with glee. The rest of the record is the easier material to parody, but it's a solid entry in the genre. Greg Lake's singing is quite good, and as he ruminates on the foibles of mankind in 'Epitaph' it's rather convincing, particularly in the epic fade out, 'I fear tomorrow I'll be crying', and that's before late capitalism had really started twisting the screws as fiercely as today. 'Moonchild including The Dream and The Illusion' would be memorable enough just for the title, but the romantic, wistful lyrics are actually rather beautiful and there's a great improvised breakdown 3/4 of the way through that gets into some good call and response jib-jabs. Here, Fripp's guitar is jazzing around some spazzy (but not aggressive percussion); it suggest that they were listening to (if not outright being influenced by) European improvisation of the time, Brötzmann and the Dutch guys, etc. There's a false ending on the last track, which allows just enough pause to contemplate how idiosyncratic this album actually is. It sounds more like 2 or 3 different bands, like a compilation. Given how big King Crimson became subsequently, I know that there's hardcore fans with far deeper insights than I, who are scoffing at this writeup. But this is a personal journey through a wall of vinyl, so I can close this writeup by saying simply: 'I just like how it sounds'. Even early on in his career, Fripp was focused on getting a good recording - and anyway, the scary face on the front cover is great, and would be worthy enough to appear on a future Voivod album cover. Camper Van Chadbourne did a pretty great cover of 'I Talk To The Wind' which I prefer to the original, but maybe I'm just more familiar with it.

Jefferson Airplane - 'Surrealistic Pillow' (RCA Victor)

OK, here's a bit of seemingly intentional nonconformity, but I don't think Surrealistic Pillow is all that great. Which leads to the followup question of why do I own a copy then, to which I cannot really provide an answer. This copy is beat to shit and the stereo pressing, and I love their subsequent release, but I think the record's notoriety probably stands in the way of me truly evaluating it, truly appreciating it maybe. Which is what I tried to do when it came up today, next in this project, another surprise of 'Oh do I have this still?' as happens so often here. I guess given the surreal, truly psychedelic sound of After Bathing at Baxter's I find the tepid folk-pop songs on here hard to sit through; the recording is also done in that too-echoey way that makes it sound particularly dated, the same way Moby Grape records sound to me, which is maybe just the 'psychedelic sound', at least the San Francisco variant. Speaking of Moby Grape, Skip Spence wrote 'My Best Friend', which is one of the more forgettable numbers here; it, along with 'Today' and 'How Do You Feel' steer Surrealistic Pillow far closer to sounding like a slightly amped up Mamas and Papas than the cabal of psychedelic visionaries they're supposed to be. The two towering songs here are of course 'Somebody to Love' and 'White Rabbit', and I don't know what I can really say about them that is an original take. The latter is of course a ridiculous work of music, immortalised by Hunter Thompson, and the former is, to me, merely a pretty good pop song of the era. That both of these are Grace Slick's contributions and that they have endured so much longer than anything else on Surrealistic Pillow probably indicates that having her join the band was a good idea. 'Plastic Fantastic Lover' is pretty good and 'She Has Funny Cars' is good music to play in a documentary when you're talking about the swinging sixties. Otherwise the pick of the litter for me is Jorma Kaukonen's beautiful 'Embryonic Journey', a bit of melting Vanguard/Takoma magic that works extra well before 'White Rabbit'. I know I'm being a bit hard on this because it's considered a psychedelic classic, but it hardly sounds like the Cold Sun LP. And better grooves are around the corner, for sure.

Hatfield and the North (Virgin)

My favourite part on this Hatfield and the North record (a record which actually is packed with numerous small pleasures) comes about 2/3 of the way through 'Son of "There's No Place Like Homerton"', the longest piece on the record; some bright, piercing tones float over the otherwise melodic jam, sticking out like if Stereolab guested on just ten seconds of the song, though I think its actually a flute or woodwinds. It introduces a long, beautiful vocal section where the three female vocalists who are mostly relegated to backing roles come to the forefront. They chant in a round-like pattern, setting down some moments of total magic which has traces of English folk, early music, and whatever a Greek chorus is supposed to be. It's this part I keep coming back to whenever I listen to this record, the first side of which otherwise passes into the background, a melodic, rolling example of Canterbury scene prog in an advanced iteration. The lineup has Pip Pyle from Gong, Phil Miller from Matching Mole, and two guys from Caravan, one the brother of the 'other' Steve Miller who did that underrated duet record with Lol Coxhill -- and it sounds accordingly like Canterbury music was supposed to sound. All of the musicianship is excellent and in that style which feels hopelessly dated now - tight changes, affected guitars, Robert Wyatt guest spots, fast instrumental interplay, some great juxtapositions (a phone rings near the end of 'Fol de Rol' and the singing is finished through it; there's some concrète dabbling in other incidental spots), and songs with titles like 'Shaving is Boring'. They're capable of some engaging heat - the aggressive ending of 'Rifferama' sounds exactly how you'd expect a song called 'Rifferama' to sound. Whenever I try to explain to people that I like prog rock, I should cite records like this as an example; it's not as far out or spazzy as more European NWW-list stuff, but it's also a hell of a lot more interesting than Yes or ELP. The weirdness is controlled, and it's brainy without losing sight of music's power to create images and memories; sometimes the bass playing is a bit overbearing, which is a shame because the band can create some pretty nice soundworlds with basic rock instrumentation. The Pyle-penned 'Shaving' retains the acid edge of Gong, minus Daevid Allen (or anyone else) singing, and with an awesome, phenomenal space rock crescendo. Matching Mole was more fun of course, since it was Wyatt's band through and through, and I have a huge soft spot for the first National Health album, a band which emerged out of Hatfield, particularly because of the epic jam 'Tenemos Roads', probably the high point of this whole genre of music. 

Eye Shaking Kingdom - 'With Metal and Swordlight' (LeftHand/Sick Head)

Back from the grave! Or at least another hiatus, this time brought on by a relocation and an actual separation from the vinyl accumulation. We have a week back in its presence so we promise to work through as much as we can, or at least reach the 'F's. Eye Shaking Kingdom is a duo of two Scots, some new school noisemakers who are clearly indebted to the Leeds-axis 'ecstatic drone' scene (aren't we all?) but with a tendency towards darker, more gritty layers. The four tracks here move through all manner of horizontalities, starting with 'Thrown Holy Ghosts' mechanical whirrs, all gears and gristle, before resolving into a piercing, shrill drone. The second track amps up the unease, and on the flip, 'In Opal and In Emerald' is outwardly rambunctious, with a jeweled beacon of cheap synth light cutting over the Japanese noise-esque gurgles and static aberrations. Occasionally it all converges, and just when you start to feel your third eye stir, it jumps aside again. One half of this is Nackt Insecten, whose solo work is not a million miles from this; the collaboration feels natural, if not particularly challenging. But there's a harmony in this dischord, and it suggests a unified vision.