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Rating: Once again, it caught us off guard. Just when we had gotten used to the new identity of the King (the cold, metallic, claustrophobic one of 2003), Fripp destroyed it once more, seasoning our disappointment with his cryptic diary entries, in which hints of the possibility that the fantastic adventure of the Crimson King might have come to an end appeared. But this has happened several times before, and the die-hard fans, with the feverish anticipation of seeing if Fripp would once again defy time, and the chatter, "What will happen now?" "Is it true that Belew has left the group?”, well, all these things only heightened the expectations about the work presented from the sudden news that Fripp and Jakko Jakszyk, with the participation of Mel Collins (!), with the usual Levin and with another surprise (behind the drums, as in the latest concerts, is a certain Gavin Harrison, drummer of a little band called Porcupine Tree, replacing Mastellotto. This choice will prove to be very wise) had formed a new, unprecedented creature that had all the elements to surprise us.
As I was saying, the feverish anticipation of this work was largely disappointed. No one expected anything like this, and as usual, King Crimson alienate fans who had become too accustomed to the previous sound, reacquiring older ones and attracting new ones. I do not deny having been surprised by all this as well, but with further listens, this new incarnation has blossomed and revealed its petals.
This ProjeKct was born from an innocuous improvisational jam between Uncle Bob and Jakko, to which the other members then joined in, willing to contribute, as Fripp writes. The work of Our Gentlemen represents a (further) step forward for one of Monsieur Robert's many creations, the soundscapes. In fact, the attempt is to translate that form of musical expression so light and ethereal as soundscapes into some song form. This is why Jakko devises vocal lines for the tracks that do not compromise the basic structure of the background, and all the instruments follow the given line, using it as a framework to launch into clean and sober interventions and alternative yet parallel melodic lines. To all this Collins’s flute and sax are exceptions, performing delicate evolutions that leave a nocturnal sensation on the tracks, introspective and comparable to vast pastel paintings. And so, these unique evolving creatures, for once not based on improvisation but on a basic idea, form the six pieces of this work that, once again, offer new ideas and open new horizons to that constantly changing creature that is Music.
Another unprecedented characteristic is the presence of winds not as a violent outlet of liberation, as in almost all previous occurrences, but their presence is gentle and delicate, like the sparse and varied touch of Harrison, who, without exceeding in technicalities or noisy avalanches of blows, paints percussive lines that intertwine with the expert and gentle exquisitely para-jazz touches of Levin. Jakko’s airy and profound singing is softly laid on his open chords. Overall, however, with the absence of Belew, there is a newfound discovery of Fripp as a soloist. In addition to leading the piece with soundscapes, the Maestro slips in some of his unmistakable solos, usually conceived in tritones and as scales, relaxed and flat, unpredictable in their search for the hidden side of good taste. Fripp has always endeavored to eliminate a center of execution, rhythmic, tonal, or melodic, and here he seems to have dangerously approached it: the structures are determined beforehand but open to possible interpretations, and all the instruments are decorations of the heart of the track, which is finally independent of them because it coincides with the idea itself. Not by chance this album is one of the Maestro’s favorites, by his own admission.
One component almost absent (except perhaps in The Other Man), and probably the cause of the denomination "ProjeKct" and not actually a real King Crimson album, is that of noise, which was always present before. This also distances the work further from the realms of Rock and shifts it a bit more towards Fripp’s solo works.
And so these characteristics unfold across the tracks, from the Collins’s protagonist in Secrets, to the light and spectral choruses that hover in This House, to the disordered and colorful pieces of the already mentioned The Other Man, to the thing closest to a song, The Price We Pay, where Jakko enjoys himself with the Gu Zheng, in the romantic and insightful complete deconstruction of The Light of Day, to the plausible masterpiece for completeness, sonority, representativeness, coherence, and atmosphere which is the title-track.
Awaiting, therefore, the hoped-for sequel to this work, we can only acknowledge how the constant mutation of King Crimson disregards time, market laws, and anything else, rightfully entering the category of works of art of which this album is, in my opinion, a worthy representative, and how the most exciting adventure of Rock, the saga of the Crimson King, is not yet concluded but merely at a new, unexpected chapter.
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