King Crimson
Earthbound

At the time it was released, "Earthbound" shocked many KC fans. Fresh out of the ethereal atmospheres of Islands, one could have expected anything except 46'38" of apparent sound chaos, further emphasized by a dirty and overexposed recording (sound engineer Hunter Mac Donald recorded the concert on cassette).

In reality, Fripp's compositional skill and musical despotism were put to the test by a band on the verge of disbandment, with members coming from musical contexts too different from those in which the Crimson King had completed his brilliant journey up to that point. Legend has it that Boz Burrell, who later founded the supergroup Bad Company, when joining KC, respectfully pointed out to Fripp that he had no idea how to play the bass. The response was disarming: "don’t worry, I’ll teach you..." and, after a few weeks, he was incorporated as a singer-bassist.

The album opens with an extended and hallucinatory version of "21st Century schizoid man", where the solos of Fripp (aaarrrggghhh, what a solo!!!) and Mel Collins merge with each other. This is followed by "Peoria", and an unrecognizable version of "Sailor's tale". However, it is on the second side that the schizoid attitude of this record comes out strongly. "Earthbound" and "Groon" sail the waters of dirty and deconstructed improvisation, with the sax taking center stage and Fripp's guitar, as always slightly in the background compared to the other instruments, tearing through the claustrophobic atmosphere of the tracks with metallic thrusts of unprecedented power for the time. Ian Wallace is also given space, as in "Groon", where he delivers a long electronic drum solo that ends in the most total overall chaos... Prog no longer exists. Prog is dead, killed by what had once been one of its most important creators.

Years later, with a perspective enriched by the subsequent stylistic evolutions of the Crimson King, increasingly oriented towards a violent and aggressive musical form, understanding "Earthbound" becomes easier. In this sense, this record is a precursor to the malignant explosions of "Larks' tongues in aspic" and "Starless and Bible black", which, however, reclaim a complete and geometric sound architecture.

In "Earthbound" it is possible to find a characteristic that, in all the musical work of his majesty Robert Fripp, had NEVER been seen: imperfection. How can one not love the God who becomes man?