Month: December 2021

December and 2021 are a wrap! Even though 2021 was a dismal year in so many ways, there were a lot of extraordinary albums that were released. Each of the six albums featured here are special in it’s own way, so we didn’t single out any as “Pick Hits” – they’re all great! In January TNB will publish our best of 2021 list. In the meantime, here are the new albums that came our way which we enjoyed in December 2021. To a happy and healthy 2022!

Darius Jones – Raw Demoon Alchemy (A Lone Operation)
(released November 5, 2021)

Darius Jones – Alto saxophone

Rarely does silence have this dramatic an effect – every pause taken for a breath heightens the drama. Darius Jones shows us why he has been one of the most talked about musicians around. The music is played as one tense continuous set, and builds slowly from the gorgeous opener “Figure No. 2” to the soaring shriek an the center of “Love In Outer Space.” The music is not afraid of abstraction, and lets the drama of its presentation and the excellence of it’s execution bring it all home. Only at the end, when you hear a yelp of excitement from an audience member, do you realize you’ve been listening to a live performance, and that the audience has been clinging onto every phrase until the rapturous applause at the end. A bravura performance, a really great album, and on the short list for this year’s best.

East Axis – Cool With That
(released June 25, 2021)

Matthew Shipp – piano
Allen Lowe – alto and tenor sax
Gerald Cleaver – drums
Kevin Ray – bass

Yes, another album with Matthew Shipp on it, but this one is especially good, and so is the whole band. Lowe’s saxophone is a revelation to me – he has both a weighty sound and runs spectacular, quicksilver lines. Cleaver is his usual best, providing a varied and attention-grabbing beat. Bassist Ray is also new to me, and holds down the proceedings nicely. The album is “free jazz,” but contains a lot of melody and beauty, and also channels moments from the tradition, such as the blues title track (which has a very Monk-like Shipp.) The 28 minute long closer “One” morphs spontaneously from each minute to the next in a feat of spontaneous creativity. Yes, I’m cool with this!

​Artifacts – ..​.​and then there’s this
(released October 29, 2021)

Nicole Mitchell – flute, electronics
Tomeka Reid – cello
Mike Reed – drums, percussion

The second release by the Artifacts trio of Mitchell, Reid and Reed is really enjoyable – I keep on coming back to it, and each time it gets better. Michell says at the album’s Bandcamp page that “the free improvisations on the album reflect how we’ve grown together. The new album is also more focused on groove than our debut, and this is the first record together where we are supporting each other as composers – contributing to each other’s arrangements, developing more of a vibe in our grooves, and getting almost telepathically close in our open improvisations.” It’s all quite infectious, and “Song for Helen” is one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard all year. Highly recommended!

Malcolm Jiyane Tree-O – UMDALI
(released November 12, 2021 )

Ayanda Zalekile – electric bass
Brandon Ruiters – trumpet
Gontse Makhene – percussions & toys
Lungile Kunene – drums
Malcolm Jiyane Xorile – trombone & vocals
Nhlanhla Mahlangu – alto saxophone
Nkosinathi Mathunjwa – piano & keyboard
Tebogo Seitei – trumpet
Tubatsi Mpho Moloi – vocals

When I first put on this album, it immediately felt like a wonderful respite from the stress of the world, healing music. UMDALI is Jiyane’s debut after playing with and being mentored by key South African musicians such as Johnny Mekoa. The music does not overstay its welcome at 5 tracks and 45 minutes in length, and the emphasis always is on beauty over showing off chops. It harkens back to classics and sounds like a classic itself, as if UMDALI could have been made in the 1970’s, but always sounds timeless rather than dated.

Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber – Angels Over Oakanda ~ Digital Edition
(released September 23, 2021)

Greg Tate – Conduction
Jared Michael Nickerson – Bass, percussion
Lewis Flip Barnes – Trumptet
Avram Fefer – Alto sax
V. Jeffrey Smith -Tenor and Soprano sax
Moist Paula – Baritone sax
Ben Tyree & André Lassalle – Electric guitars
Leon Gruenbaum – Fender Rhodes
Greg Gonzalez – Drums & Percussion
Shelley Nicole – Percussion
Satch Hoyt – Flute
Lisala Beatty – Vocals

Among the many reasons 2021 was not a good year was the sudden death of Greg Tate in December. Tate was so influential in promoting the kind of music this blog follows, and also created remarkable music as The Burnt Sugar Orchestra. I don’t know if this will be the last Burnt Sugar album due to Tate’s death, but if so it’s a fitting capstone – it’s an amazing album. Angels Over Oakanda seems inspired by early 70’s Miles Davis, but sounds very contemporary and fresh as well. The four tracks segue into each other in a hypnotic way; it’s easy to play the whole album through, and then play it again from the beginning. Really quite addictive.

ILL CONSIDERED – Liminal Space
(released November 12, 2021)

Idris Rahman – saxophone
Liran Donin – bass
Emre Ramazanoglu – drums
With guests:
Tamar Osborn, Ahnanse and Kaidi Akinnibi -saxophone
Sarathy Korwar and Oli Savill – percussion
Theon Cross – tuba
Ralph Wyld – vibraphone
Robin Hopcraft – trumpet

Hardly ill-considered, the music on this album seems deployed for maximum impact, with post-production that emphasizes each thump of the drums and echo deployed to increase ambiance and intensity. The album maintains the intensity of a rock album for it’s 60 minute length, and you might find yourself dancing pretty quickly. Also a great way to introduce yourself to the terrific London improvised jazz scene – Liminal Space captures it’s freshness and multiculturalism. Key tracks: “Loosed” and “The Lurch.”

King Crimson – Larks’ Tongue In Aspic
(March 23, 1973, Island records in UK, Atlantic Records in United States)

Personnel –
Robert Fripp – electric and acoustic guitars, Mellotron, Hohner pianet
John Whetton – bass, vocals, piano on “Exiles”
Bill Bruford – drums, timbales, cowbell, wood block
David Cross – violin, viola, Mellotron, Hohner pianet, flute on “Exiles”
Jamie Muir – assorted percussion and drums

Link to Apple Music
Link to Spotify
Link to entire album on YouTube

London progressive rock band King Crimson is a group more often name-dropped than actually heard. For years if a critic would describe an edgy, instrumental heavy and guitar forward “progressive” band, odds are King Crimson would be cited as an influence. But while Crimson spawned a sea of imitators, they remain more a reference point, and ironically their music is woefully under-examined.

Another part of the problem is aside from their legendary debut, you could not actually get their records. However, that all changed last year when Crimson celebrated its 50th anniversary by releasing their discography on the streaming services. So now to hear this formerly obscure and esoteric band, all you have to do is pick up the computer in your pocket and search “King Crimson” in either Spotify or Apple Music. Let’s discuss what makes their music special, and you can listen along if you wish. I am going to take you on a tour of what is arguably the band’s defining album, 1973’s Larks’ Tongue In Aspic.

The Larks’ Tongue lineup: from left, Robert Fripp, Jamie Cross, John Whetton, Jamie Muir and Bill Bruford (DGM Live)

King Crimson is not the typical progressive rock band. In the brief and strange period of the early 1970’s, when fur-coat clad, keyboard toting, utterly extravagant prog rock acts like Emerson Lake & Palmer and Genesis inexplicably packed stadiums, King Crimson sat outside the limelight, quietly blazing a future for the genre after many of their peers wore their novelty thin. The personality of King Crimson is mainly a reflection of it’s guitarist/melotron player and leader, Robert Fripp. Fripp differentiated his band from other groups operating in progressive rock by borrowing from jazz and embracing a high minded self-seriousness, while their counterparts looked to classical music and campy eccentricity. Whether conscious or not, this choice diminished the initial popularity of King Crimson in exchange for music that would hold up to modern sensibilities.

Their debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King (1969), is legendary to many for arguably birthing the world of progressive rock. Court brought a refreshing edginess to the English music scene after the saccharine sweet British Invasion, birthing a dissonant, jazzy sound that King Crimson would… soon drop in favor of commercial obscurity. Their follow up album, In the Wake of Poseidon, is likely Crimson’s most creatively bankrupt – a thematic retread of Court, even down to the track structure and naming convention. Third time proved not to be a charm with Lizard, a new height of weirdness for an already weird band, infusing rock n’ roll with the strange world of chamber music. If nothing else, it was wholly original, and loveable in its own weird way.

Although I hold these first three albums dear, especially Lizard’s wonderful peculiarity, in objective terms Crimson had two big stumbles after their artistic breakout. Introspection was in order. The first generation of King Crimson dissolved and made way for a new, powerful lineup, and a pivot in sonic direction for Fripp. Rather than borrowing from the influences of other musical forms and splicing them into the genetic code of rock music, Crim’s next foray into the outer limits would be deconstructive – breaking down rock’s double helix and shuffling the genes therein. Thus, Larks’ Tongues in Aspic was born – rock music at its most dissonant and dynamic.

Crimson live, picture likely from 1973 after Jamie Muir left the band – from left, David Cross, John Whetton, Bill Bruford and Robert Fripp

Larks’ Tongue In Aspic’s opening drama captures all you need to know. The album starts at the volume of a whisper while Gamelan-inspired percussion slowly builds. Fripps’ acerbic guitar enters with a jagged and dissonant riff, which then spills into one of the loudest guitar hooks ever commited to record. “Larks’ Tongue In Aspic, Part I” is a study in wild extremes that will either have you enraptured or rushing for the “off” button. It’s rock, but stripped of sentimentality and taken to jarring (and influential) extremes.

The quiet and contemplative ballad, “Book of Saturday” is another shock, drenched in melancholy that is distinctive and unexpected after the extreme noise of the opening track. And John Whetton has one of the saddest voices, which beautifully intertwines with David Cross’ violin and Fripp’s melodic guitar.

Speaking of beauty, next is the album’s stunning ballad, “Exiles.” The lyrics evoke the melancholy of travel – “Spring, and the air’s turning mild / City lights and the glimpse of a child.” Mellotron, acoustic guitar and violin-led harmonies flow like a tapestry of emotion sprawled across the lyrics’ pastoral scenes, bursting out in wistful explosions of melody and simmering into arresting quiet.

The next track couldn’t be any more different. “Easy Money” is the most straightforward rock song on this album, but that’s not to downplay it. Verses espousing effigial structures to avarice – “We could take the money home / Sit around the family throne / For two weeks we could appease the Almighty,” and sound effects – the hissing of a snake, the crinkling of a cash wad, and a disembodied zipper – craft a black-comedy tone, making light of the absurdity of its setting and characters. King Crimson in this iteration were masters of tongue-in-cheek satire; “The Great Deceiver” off their next album, 1974’s Starless and Bible Black, pokes holes at the commercialization of religion in the Catholic Church – “Cigarettes, ice cream / Figurines of the Virgin Mary.” “Easy Money” is classic rock with none of it’s swagger. Moreso than any other track on this album, it embodies dissonance and deconstruction, the polish and swagger of rock n’ roll ripped away and only retaining the structural viscera of its original form.

Crimson from 1974 Atlantic Records promotional material (from 1973 after Jamie Muir left) – Fripp, ever the unobtrusive bandleader, always seems to be hanging out in the background!

Every King Crimson track has the “instrumental” track, a flex of Robert Fripp’s auterial power, conveying the band’s use of dynamics and evident jazz influences. Larks’ uses the “The Talking Drum” as a carefully calibrated transition to create tension. The track begins with the distorted cries of horns and slowly builds into the frenetic percussion rhythm created by a talking drum, a double-sided West African drum that is said to sound like a person speaking – the track ramps up into a breakbeat race, flying over Jamie Cross’ wailing violin and the moaning of distorted electric guitar into an abrupt ending of literal screaming strings . . .

. . . with no gap to take a breath, we slam into the album closer and bookend to its first part, “Larks Tongues in Aspic, Pt. 2.” Really, the only way to define this track is epic. Fripp’s guitar sound has a radiant energy, the drums provide frenetic texture, and the violin screeches over the entirety, oscillating between the impending siren of an ambulance, and a Greek chorus imploring the band members to not play so immaculately, lest they be cursed with the Sisyphean task of making material as good. And is it not immaculate? A handful of the defining moments of progressive music come from this track alone, including a completely diabolical guitar riff that bisects the song into two wholes, progressive metal followed by complete insanity. If Part 1 was the album’s thesis statement – “We’re King Crimson and we’re going to make some really weird music” – Part 2 is the grandiose conclusion, drawing together every significant element from the rest of the project into a complete statement. It is a perfect album closer – the catharsis of six tracks of discipline uncuffed and bounding into a chaotic coda.

There are so many other worthy albums and distinct eras to discuss in King Crimson’s lineup – the dark masterpiece Red, the New Age-inspired, Talking Heads-adjacent Discipline, or the postmodernist capstone to their career The Power to Believe, stuck somewhere between meaningful critique of society and unashamed thrash metal. I haven’t even mentioned 1971’s Islands, my personal favorite album from Crimson, a cosmic jazz masterpiece weaving ethereal soundscapes and hard-hitting instrumentation into a conceptual tale reminiscent of Homer’s Odyssey. Even still, Larks’ Tongues in Aspic is the album that best embodies the caustic examination and destruction of popular rock music that is central to this band, and also something new on top of the remains of pop-rock – the virtuoistic creation of some really, really weird music.

Felt portrait of King Crimson by Wasawasawa

Bonus listening/viewing:
There seem to be few video documents of King Crimson from their classic 60’s and 70’s lineups, but one exception are two tracks from Larks’ Tongue recorded for German TV at the Beat Club in Bremen on October 17th, 1972. These recordings are really special because the Crimson experience is really visual, especially in this lineup with Jamie Muir’s wild (and mesmerizing) percussion antics. Two videos exist: and appropriately intense “Larks’ Tongue in Aspic, Part 1” and a really beautiful “Exiles.”

Yes, that’s my LP copy of Larks’ Tounge In Aspic!