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It was an early 1973 and Robert Fripp had just reassembled his crimson creature; "Yes man" Bill Bruford on drums, John Wetton among basses, violas, and vocal cords, David Cross with violin, flute, and mellotron, and Jamie Muir beating saws and plastic bottles before retreating to a Tibetan monastery in Scotland. Daddy Fripp's Les Paul would enter the scene at the third generous minute of the album that was born within a month: "Larks' Tongues in Aspic".
After "Island" (1971) starts like a De Lorean heading toward a dream theater with porcupine trees and some nine-inch nail tools - stuff not even Lynch, but it's just to dismiss the question of foresight - with sounds to shatter time systems and today's prejudices, driven by a compositional sense that probably has in "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part One" the historical peak since we can talk about rock music. It's not just rock, it's not just jazz, it's not just jazz-rock; 13 minutes of sonic interlocks, rhythmic alternations, dizzying fullness and emptiness, a frippian genius ride backed by the court musicians' acrobatic talent. "Book of Saturday" and "Exiles", episodes masterfully "touched" by David Cross, conducted on bold choices like Fripp's inverted solo, are some of the most refined belonging to the magical Kings, those of "I Talk to the Wind" and "Cadence and Cascade", with Wetton as the perfect performer as Greg Lake, historic bassist and singer of the band, was.
The digression of "Easy Money" settles debts with jazz already present in the unpredictable trend of the verses, so that the sung trilogy closes by shattering the song form from within, in its most obvious components; verse, chorus, and variation. The last two tracks, "The Talking Drum" and "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part Two", are one the natural consequence of the other; the talking drum leads a hypnotic and wild crescendo jam, then Fripp intervenes to ravage the odds and evens of the rhythmic session in the final triumph. "Can we try one more immediately?" says Wetton as the vinyl makes its last spins; all year long King Crimson would improvise the material for the next "Starless and Bible Black" (1974)... "Possiamo farne subito un'altra?"...
It's a useless and sacred game that, I assume, every music lover plays at least once; electing one's own, highly personal, "best album of all time". And I, spontaneously, take my thoughts back to 1973; in that year the moon showed the world its dark side but I, once again, prefer it embraced by the sun's rays...
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
02 Book of Saturday (02:56)
If I only could deceive you forgetting the game
Every time I try to leave you, you laugh just the same
'Cause my wheels never touch the road
And the jumble of lies we told
Just returns to my back to weigh me down...
We lay cards upon the table, the backs of our hands
And I swear I like your people, the boys in the band
Reminiscences gone astray
Coming back to enjoy the fray
In a tangle of night and daylight sounds...
All completeness in the morning, asleep on your side
I'll be waking up the crewmen, banana-boat ride
She responds like a limousine
Brought alive on the silent screen
To the shuddering breath of yesterday...
There's the succour of the needy, incredible scenes
I'll believe you in the future, your life and death dreams
As the cavalry of despair
Takes a stand in the lady's hair
For the favour of making sweet sixteen...
You make my life and times
A book of bluesy Saturdays
And I have to choose...
03 Exiles (07:42)
Now in this faraway land
Strange that the palms of my hands
Should be damp with expectancy
Spring, and the air's turning mild
City lights and the glimpse of a child
Of the alleyway infantry
Friends - do they know what I mean?
Rain and the gathering green
Of an afternoon out of town
But lord I had to go
The trail was laid too slow behind me
To face the call of fame
Or make a drunkard's name for me
Though now this better life
Has brought a different understanding
And from these endless days
Shall come a broader sympathy
And though I count the hours
To be alone's no injury
My home was a place by the sand
Cliffs and a military band
Blew an air of normality
04 Easy Money (07:54)
Your admirers on the street
Gotta hoot and stamp their feet
In the heat from your physique
As you twinkle by in moccasin sneakers
And I thought my heart would break
When you doubled up at the stake
With your fingers all a-shake
You could never tell a winner from a snake
but you always make money
Easy money
With your figure and your face
Strutting out at every race
Throw a glass around the place
Show the colour of your crimson suspenders
We would take the money home
Sit around the family throne
My old dog could chew his bone
For two weeks we could appease the Almighty
Easy money
Got no truck with the la-di-da
Keep my bread in an old fruit jar
Drive you out in a motor-car
Getting fat on your lucky star just making
Easy money.
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By jAMIEmUIRfanc
The album starts with “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic pt. I,” the most beautiful piece in Crimson history, in my view the most beautiful in the history of music.
One of the most beautiful albums in history is still underestimated and regarded simply as a “beautiful album” due to the mildness of its revolution, which instead should be the reason to love it.
