Home Recensioni Album King Crimson - The Great Deceiver, Vol. 1 [Eng]

King Crimson
The Great Deceiver, Vol. 1 [Eng]

Scritto da Paolo Marchegiani Giovedì 31 Gennaio 2008 21:41 Letto : 5808 volte

This is a four-CD boxed set from the 73-74 live performances featuring Fripp, Bruford, Wetton, and Cross, the lineup that to many Crimheads was the quintessential iteration of the band's many faces. Dark, ominous, moody, majestic, monolithic, savage at times and gorgeously evocative at others, fans can string together their own adjectives to describe this indescribable band. The highlight of the package is the many and varied improvisations included in the set lists. The biggest disappointment for me with this set of CDs is the lack of inclusion of any tracks featuring former percussionist Jamie Muir, the crazed Scotchman who provided insanity, stage leaping, and blood capsules for the audience's consumption. Muir's legacy can be heard in Bruford's expanded repertoire of percussion goodies, stretching himself out from his former reliance on a straightforward jazz kit. I assume there were some legal strings preventing them from including Muir's performances. All four members get plenty of room for spotlights on the extensive, some say redundant, entries on the CDs in this set. There's also a highly informative booklet with lots of Fripp diary entries and photos.

The first CD, and the beginning of the 2nd, comprise the entirety of the second-to-last performance, recorded in Providence, Rhode Island, and giving us the Providence improv, released in a slightly brushed-up form on Red. (The last performance would be immortalized in the '75 release USA, re-released in an extended version in 2004 as Casino, without the annoying studio overdubs by Eddie Jobson.) The band had already decided to fire violinist David Cross, whose increasing discomfort with his place in the band had manifested itself in his increasing role as a keyboardist desperately trying to fit in to the roar of the power trio of his bandmates, and less of a featured violin player. Cross's delicate contributions would become more and more overwhelmed by the industrial buzzsaw of the other three musicians, but in this set Cross gets plenty of room to shine on violin and viola, making the average listener with no idea of the band's personal dynamics wonder what the fuss was all about.

The second CD is filled out with highlights from a 1973 Glasgow performance, featuring the rare use of a drum machine in the improv Tight Scrummy and a rare performance of a 60s song other than 21st Century Schizoid Man, a rocked-up rendition of the jazzy Cat Food. It's filled out with a long, satisfying improv from a Penn State concert flowing out of Easy Money.

85/100

Robert Fripp: Guitar, mellotron, electric piano
David Cross: Violin, mellotron, electric piano
John Wetton: Bass guitar, vocals
Bill Bruford: Drums, percussion

Year: 2007
Label: DGM
Genre: Rock

Tracklist:
CD 1
01. Walk On...No Pussyfooting
02. Larks' Tongues In Aspic
03. Lament
04. Exiles
05. Improv - A Voyage To the Centre Of the Cosmos
06. Easy Money
07. Improv - Providence
08. Fracture
09. Starless

CD 2
01. 21st Century Schizoid Man
02. Walk Off From Providence...No Pussyfooting
03. Sharks' Lungs In Lemsip
04. Lark's Tongues In Aspic
05. Book Of Saturday
06. Easy Money
07. We'll Let You Know
08. The Night Watch
09. Improv - Tight Scrummy
10. Peace - A Theme
11. Cat Food
12. Easy Money...
13. ...It Is For You, But Not For Us

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