(((O))) Review: King Crimson – Larks’ Tongues in Aspic: The Complete Recording Sessions

It is July 22, 1972. The front page of the Melody Maker says it all, “YES MAN TO JOIN CRIMSON.” In that time frame, King Crimson had released four studio albums from 1969 to 1971 (In the Court of the Crimson King, In the Wake of Poseidon, Lizard, and Islands). Throughout different line-up changes, it almost marked the end of that carnation of Crimson’s book from the Islands-era. But not was lost as the next incarnation of Crimson was about to be born. But before we delve into the John Wetton-era, let’s take a little trip down memory lane in crimson lake.

During that time frame, according to Sid Smith’s liner notes for the 2012 reissue of Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, the band which included Boz Burrell, Mel Collins, Ian Wallace, and Robert Fripp, finished up their tour promoting the Islands album on April 1, 1972 at the Municipal Auditorium in Birmingham, Alabama. The book on the Islands period had finally closed on the band. Boz would later team up with Mel and Ian to form Alexis’ band Snape before he would join up with Free members Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke and Mott the Hoople’s Mick Ralphs to form super group Bad Company.

Fripp became a very busy man during the summer of that year, going through the live recordings, one of which would be the Earthbound album originally released on Island’s HELP label. Robert would later get together with percussionist and Edinburgh College of Art alumni Jamie Muir (The Music Improvisation Company, Pete Brown and his Battered Ornaments) who was suggested by Melody Maker writer Richard Williams.

Muir was like a madman when it came to playing drums and percussion’s as he was following in the footsteps of Kenny Clarke, Tony Williams, Milford Graves, and Mahavishnu’s Billy Cobham while Bruford already had put his hands with Yes’ from their sole self-titled debut in 1969 to their magnum opus Close to the Edge. By this time, Bruford already did what he could do with Yes as he was getting ready to leave the band to join up with Crimson.

Both Yes and King Crimson had supported each other in touring a little earlier when they toured together in Boston. Not to mention Jon Anderson’s guest vocal appearance on ‘Prince Rupert Awakes’ from the 23-minute ‘Lizard’ Suite. One of the first pictures which was shown in issue 138, covering the 50th anniversary of the Larks’ album from PROG Magazine is the line-up featuring David Cross, Fripp, Muir, and Bruford, rehearsing at Covent Garden that same year in July.

You can feel the chemistry, the vibes, the power, and the energy for what was about to unfold. And the final piece of the puzzle, was none other than Bassist and Vocalist John Wetton.

Fresh from both Mogul Thrash and Family (Fearless, Bandstand), he and Bruford had a discussion on what they wanted to do and the direction they were about to take. “I think John and I were very simpatico”. Bruford explained to Mike Barnes in issue 138 of PROG Magazine, “We used to play Herbie Hancock records – Crossings had just been released that summer and figure out how they worked, and built this powerful unit”.

Once Wetton joined the band, everything started to click. But there was one more that needed to fit the giant jigsaw puzzle, and that was lyricist Richard Palmer-James, replacing Pete Sinfield. James had made a name for himself playing guitar and writing lyrics for Supertramp for their 1970 sole self-titled debut album and had known Wetton when they went to school together in Bournemouth while he met with Fripp concisely in the ‘60s.

The line-up began doing gigs in the Autumn of 1972, starting on October 13th at the Zoom Club in Frankfurt to their final night as a quintet at the Guildhall in Portsmouth on December 13th. They would play new material in which what would appear on the Larks’ album, improvise, and they would go into this machine-gun, like attacks.

There’s no denying that Larks’ Tongues in Aspic remains the band’s crowning jewel by going into these dark, hidden corridors as the five-headed beast goes in for the kill and eat its prey, one by one. 50 years later, the album still resonates fans and gives an understanding on why the Wetton period has remained the true cornerstone of Crimson’s peak during the 1970s.

Now in a 2-CD / 2 Blu-Ray set, their fifth studio album, originally released on Chris Blackwell’s Island label, has been updated with a new 2023 mix by Steven Wilson, who had done the 2012 mix of the album for the band’s 40th anniversary series, and an Elemental mix done by David Singleton.

The name, Larks’ Tongues in Aspic came from Jamie Muir when someone asked him how he would describe the sound. Recorded at Command Studios in London from January to February in 1973, Crimson had carte blanche all over this bad boy from the moment the first part of the title-track begins.

You hear Muir playing the mbira, an African thumb piano and glockenspiel for the first three minutes as Cross’ violin passage sets up the tone for Fripp adding in these dissonance tone for Muir and Bruford launch a full-scale assault. Both Bill and Jamie were like mad scientists, ready for Fripp to set the countdown with this chord riff in six before Wetton’s wah-wah bass comes pummelling in like a bat out of hell.

Then, all hell breaks loose. Fripp, Muir, Bruford, and Wetton go into this chaotic improvisation, channeling Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters-era and The Mahavishnu Orchestra’s first two studio albums with some stop-and-go changes with Muir making the jump to light-speed.

Listening to the elemental mix done by Crimson’s manager David Singleton, there’s this extended intro with glockenspiel, the mbira, Fripp’s guitar sounding like a metallic bicycle with sharp-spiked materials, plus hearing his clean guitar tone in the background, gives some insight on what was to come. There’s something Bartok about this track as Cross was fascinated by his music and the scales that Bela would use to create the staccato textures in the first and second part of the piece.

Palmer-James’ lyrics for ‘Book of Saturday’ gives Wetton a chance to relax with some backward middle-eastern arrangements between Robert and Cross by walking into a romantic, yet soulful ballad before ‘Exiles’ returns to their first two albums with mellotron’s galore!

On Wilson’s 2023 mix, I can hear Cross’ violin coming in front and center very clear and Fripp’s acoustic waltz, followed by some flute improvisations which I never heard before in the original and 2012 mix. The autobiographical lyrics described by Wetton in the song details Palmer-James moving from Bournemouth to Germany.

It’s very much like looking back in the time of your life, reflecting the memories you once had, knowing that it once was a perfect childhood in ‘Exiles’. Then, we get down and dirty with ‘Easy Money’. The dirtiest, meanest, raunchy, and metallic composition from the future kings of tribal rock.

Muir doing a mud stomp with his hands in the bucket, the tolling of the bell, Wetton’s double-tracking scat, mellotron, Fripp’s alarming intro, and Bruford’s menacing intro. There’s the jazz-funk attitude, the sound of paper being ripped and crunched, returning back to the Hancock approach before Robert lays down some spiraling arrangements on his guitar to give the Laughing Bag this nightmare segueing into ‘The Talking Drum’.

The howling wind, the effect of mosquitos done by Muir using a bullroarer, the African Djembe Muir used with some incredible handy work before Bruford, Cross, and Wetton lead in the racetrack, clocking in some intense duelling snake attack ready to bite you and spit venom with a rapid twist. The 2023 mix of this track from Wilson made me jump at the closing section like something straight out of the climax from the 1967 thriller Wait Until Dark starring Richard Crenna, Alan Arkin and Audrey Hepburn.

That nearly made me jump out of my seat almost completely because the volumes went up with the shrieking sound which I believe it’s either Cross or Fripp sending this high-pitch scream before returning back to the earth’s core for the second and final part of the title-track.

‘Part Two’ is like nothing you ever heard before. This is where the going gets even good. This wasn’t just Fripp playing the riff, this was him making his guitar transform in a blood-thirsty cannibalistic beast, whose ready to eat massive amounts of human flesh like there’s no tomorrow! Pure gore fest at its best. Fripp’s guitar is like a wolverine who’s high on angel dust!

Yes, there is the Stravinsky influences that comes to mind from the ‘Rite of Spring’ suite, but the band themselves are on this tightrope, making sure they held on to dear life, going from Big Ben to Parliament as the clock begins to tick very rapidly. The elemental mix is where we Muir going absolutely bat shit crazy with all of the utensils he needs to create the monstrous tones.

I mean he is a madman, but one hell of a percussionist to create these effects that would make you shit your pants, 24/7! I can see Bruford having a laugh and a smile on his face to see Muir having a ball on this track and Fripp nearly saying to him “Oh yes, now we’re cooking with fire!”

The cover, done by Peter Douglas of Tantra Designs, says it all. But it adds the mystery and surrealism to the music. When the album was released on March 23, 1973, it went to Number 20 in the UK and No. 61 in the States. Around this time Muir left the band a week after the album came out to become a Buddhist.

50 years on, Larks’ Tongues in Aspic is very much a quintessential King Crimson album that refuses to die. When you go through your record collection and play this album from beginning to end, it’s like a graphic novel coming to life. It reflects all of the ideas coming out of the blue with visionary images that are straight out of the idealist movement in the late 18th and early 19th century.

And as Sid Smith describes in the closing notes of the King Crimson Collectors Club of Live in Newcastle 1972, “After a gap of well over forty years hearing this music was like suddenly and unexpectedly seeing a long, lost friend. I’m ever so glad that we go to meet up again after all this time”.