New Additions to the Record Shelf

This past week, I received some records in the mail. I've been going stir-crazy lately, what with my unpleasant mood due to pandemic insanity, the extreme cold and cabin fever here in my neck of Canada, and general stress of this time of year. Let's get to spring and summer, all right?! Anyway, hopefully a bit of new music will get me through.

80's era King Crimson - musical masters

I had ordered the first record online over a month ago, and it finally arrived... after an economy mail trip (by seagull?) across the Atlantic from the UK. But well worth the wait. This was the album Lucifer II, by the Swedish-German band Lucifer. It was released a few years ago, but since this is a smaller musical act, vinyl pressings were somewhat limited, so I had to hunt down a German import. Anyway, the very cool 70's-styled hard rock/near metal sound is impressive. There are obvious nods to their influences, but Lucifer is carving out their own niche based on the downer-doom vibes of early Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, and Danzig, among others. It's riff-y and sometimes downright catchy, though the dark, oppressive, sludgy tempos dominate. Frontwoman Johanna Sadonis formed the band in Germany after the dissolution of former group The Oath (with whom I've been familiar for several years). Sadonis possesses a vocal quality that isn't exactly powerful (to my ears) but it is entrancing, quite suitable for the cryptic lyrics and doomy instrumentation. I'm still busily absorbing the songs on Lucifer II, and haven't formed thoughts on favourite tracks yet, though opener California Sun made an immediate impression.

Next up is something I really should have owned long, long ago: Discipline, by King Crimson. In the late 80's, on a trip to England, I bought a CD compilation of Crimson's music, never having heard more than maybe one tune on the radio years before. But as a young man getting serious about progressive rock, this seemed the correct thing to do. I didn't entirely warm to the music, though. A small handful of tracks worked nicely for me, and I never bothered with the rest of them. Years passed, and since I never revisited the album, I sold off the CD. Fast forward a couple of decades -  to a couple of weeks ago, and I found myself investigating the music of classic-era King Crimson on Youtube. I wasn't wild about their 70's output (what little I tried) but found I was drawn to some of their 80's music, which just happened to be the handful of tunes I remembered from that old CD. After some homework online, I learned that one particular album was comprised of nearly all those tracks I had enjoyed so long ago. And that album was... and is... Discipline.

Apparently Crimson changed up their personnel and sound often during their long career. The 80's saw a melding of their established prog-rock with the experimental styles and technology of that time. It was this material that resonated most with me, and it holds up today. I found a vintage copy of Discipline on vinyl LP on Discogs, my preferred online source for record shopping. Very gently used, this album sounds terrific, both in its near-perfect preserved sound quality and in its boundary-bashing musical content. I'm a fan. Of this album. I admit - again - that it hasn't been easy learning to love Crimson. But having exposed myself to many forms of extreme and weird music over the years, I feel like I am now much more open to KC's avant-garde style. The entire album is primo, though standout tracks are: Frame By Frame, Matte Kudasai, Thela Hun Gingeet, Elephant Talk, and The Sheltering Sky. Each song is brilliant in its own unique and weird way. The least weird of the bunch is Matte Kudasai, one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. A sort of sad, maybe bittersweet, ballad both lyrically and instrumentally. I've long known the names of all the musicians in this 80's incarnation of the band, but to finally hear them all doing their respective insanely talented thing here kinda blows my mind. Fripp on guitar... wow, Levin on bass... whew, Bruford on percussion... yikes, Belew on vocals... my, my. 

Yes, a very happy addition to my collection, and certainly one of the best albums on my vinyl shelves. I highly recommend Discipline. Now off to discover another Crimson album...

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P.S. I actually saw two members of King Crimson perform live many moons ago. In the mid-1980's, I saw Bill Bruford drumming in a jazz duo with pianist Patrick Moraz (who I knew of from his brief residency with prog-rock act Yes) in a Toronto nightclub. Then in the late 80's, I saw Tony Levin on bass with the Anderson-Bruford-Wakeman-Howe reunion concert in Ottawa. A highly memorable show.