King Crimson - Larks Tongues In Aspic
Island/Atlantic
March 23rd, 1973.
Larks Tongues in Aspic is the fifth King Crimson studio album, and the first to feature the trio of founding member, Robert Fripp, on guitar, John Wetton on bass and Bill Bruford on drums - a key crew in the progression of the bands sound and future releases, such as Red. David Cross provides the sinister sounds of malevolent strings throughout.
The album opens up in the garden of youth - the Summer breeze swaying gently on your skin. Chimes of angelic quality saunter and sway in the distance. All good things must come to an end. Larks Tongues in Aspic(Part I) builds to an apprehensive and Hitchcockesque string section - inducing feelings of imminent downturn. Basslines bubble and brim, guitars crunch and soar, drums bounce and tease. An idiosyncratic groove is pulled from the burning embers of an anxiety attack - it's about as hectic and seemingly uncalculated as you'd expect from a King Crimson track. Moments of sheer beauty are partnered up with confusing and delirious outbursts. Madness in the form of music would be a reasonable description - bi-polar, schizophrenic, unhinged.
Decorated with what you could call mature musicianship, Larks Tongues is embellished with details - such as motifs - and minute meanderings that wisp away in the background. It can be confusing on the first few listens through. It can seem disjointed and all over the place - a bit scatterbrained. But as you sit through it, over time, it comes together in ways that you could never have predicted. Pieces form like puzzles - this meets that, and that leads to this, and so on. Moments are falling off of themselves in a sort of death and re-birth that moves things forward - it could be used as a sonic representation of life, if you ask me.
The ebb and flow of Larks Tongues is something to surrender to - fight it, and miss the whole show.
