Adrian Belew
Lone Rhino

For anyone who has ever wondered what sound a rhinoceros makes, the quietly menacing horn-toting hippopotamus, this first, surprising, solo endeavor by Adrian Belew comes to the rescue.

Anarchic hair, as if in revenge for the forced bundling imposed by age, a white wool nightshirt, a pockmarked face with theatrical expressiveness; the Adrian Belew of today, a natural counterpart to that Robert Fripp, on the stool at the corner of the stage, focused and above all disciplined.

The stylistic and personality contrast has fundamentally been the reason for the (artistic, of course) success of such a heterogeneous guitar duo, in duels between animality and geometry, noise and asepticism. Fripp's elitist intellectualism tainting itself with pop, dance electronics, reformulating a desecrating and very personal language that inhabits and transcends the consumable music of the '80s.

The work reviewed here is dated '82, placing itself in the period immediately following the crimsonian Discipline, also anticipating what will be heard later in "Beat" and "Three Of A Perfect Pair".

I say this for the few who might not know: Adrian Belew is a monster of skill, in singing as in guitar, a free and hard to classify character. Even if only for his daunting resume, it is undeniable that he has no limits except those he sets for himself.

The key to his work lies in the elaboration of a language that is free, yet accessible, that feeds on the most culturally deleterious muzak, but that speaks on multiple levels. Or perhaps here we simply find the sincerely naive approach of Belew to understand music, where free jazz counterpoints and synth pop, motorik rhythms and guitar diluted in relaxing ambient ("Naive Guitar", indeed).

What is missing here, though, is the much-touted "discipline" of Fripp,  Belew roams freely in every direction, remaining faithful only to the improbable concept of rhinoceroses (The Lone Rhinoceros, a comically poignant ballad in which the guitar mimics its typical sound, is a bit of a summary of what has been said) and to the freak pop that recalls the irresistibly playful imaginative universe of Frank Zappa. (who, remember, was his discoverer)

"Swingline" whose saxophones initially mimic the nervousness of Red, then goes through very cheesy rhythms to return to a crimson-like sound in the dark persistence of the horns, pierced by Belew's guitar. "Addidas In Heat" is a cauldron of fusion, funk, and pseudo-avant-garde collage, the opener seems instead a parody of new wave, "Stop It" is amusing pop-jazz that, in the finale, shows, if it were needed, Belew's philosophy of non-seriousness.

Indeed, while it's impossible to overlook the work of the '80s King Crimson in the evaluation or even just in the listening approach, it must be said that although it is very easy to highlight the (enormous) musical contribution of Belew in this phase of the crimson king, here we are always talking about pop music.

Intellectual pop, disorienting pop, anarchic pop and ultimately aimed at an ideal audience with no reflection in reality (least of all with that of the '80s), but pop in form and content, in whose (own) theoretically limited registries it's discovered as vital and expressive.

For dinosaurs (and of course rhinoceroses) who appreciate being playful when visionary, for the young who prefer to be old to dissociate from common sense, for those who wear shoes of different colors, for those who go to the office after watching cartoons, for those who will not ponder the legitimacy of the five I've put up there, for those who are everyone or who want to be differently a nobody.

Ps: the melody in the chorus of "Swingline" is the one present in the video game "Crash Bandicoot", unless I'm wrong or I'm crazy.