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Steve Wilson about King Crimson

Started by erik, Fri, 2010-01-01, 16:21:02

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erik

No other than Steve Wilson has done 5.1 mixes of so far three legendary King Crimson albums: Court, Lizard (more infamous than legendary maybe, this one, but I like it a lot) and Red. On the KC website Steve shares his interesting thoughts on these classic albums. Robert Fripp's sleeve notes for said albums can also be read on the KC website.

http://www.king-crimson.com/

QuoteThe legacy of In The Court of the Crimson King.

A life-long King Crimson fan, 40th Anniversary Editions producer, Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson offers his thoughts on the debut album.

"For me this is the birth of progressive rock. Yes there were other albums before that. You could say Sgt. Peppers or Moody Blues Days Of Future Passed have a claim to laying down a blueprint of progressive rock but ITCOTCK really is the first time you have such technical prowess allied to musical experiments, great songwriting, and a conceptual feeling all tied together in one record.

I think musicianship is the key here. Bands like The Beatles and the Moody Blues attempted very ambitious psuedo-progressive albums before, but Crimson was the first time you had a band that were able to go that one step further in terms of their musicianship. They were young guys full of ideas and ambition and I really think you have to say that this is the true point at which progressive rock is born, and some would say never bettered.

Some people snigger at the idea of progressive rock but for me when progressive rock was at its peak in the 69 - 74 period it was the most experimental, most credible, most ambitious music that has ever been made. The guys were reaching for the stars and very often got there."

Making sense of Lizard

A life-long King Crimson fan, 40th Anniversary Editions producer, Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson, offers his thoughts on the challenges of remixing Crimson's third album.

"One of the first things I said to Robert when we started talking about the 5.1 mixes was that I wanted to do Lizard because for me, that's always been an album that was too big for stereo to contain. There's so much going on in that record.

I've always felt that if presented in the right way, I could make a case for this being the most experimental rock record ever made. It's extraordinary what they're doing on this album. In terms of fusing free-jazz with progressive rock for me there's almost no parallel and yet it seems to an album that is overlooked by jazz fans and progressive rock fans alike.

When I was doing the Battle of Glass Tears, there were sections of that where the solos are all blowing free jazz and on the master tapes there are multiple takes. To try and figure out that spaghetti took a lot of focus and attention. That's definitely the hardest remix I've done so far because the master tapes were in such a terrible state. There appeared to be no logic about where things were on the tape. I mean it was as though they were trying to make an album with 48 tracks but they only had 16. It was very ambitious.  

That solo at the end of Lizard (Prince Rupert's Lament) is just one take. There's no edits in there. That's 2 1/2 minutes and the notes he's pulling out - the feeling, the sustain, the emotion. I mean if I do a solo I'll do about 50 takes and edit the best bits together and it might sound good at the end. But just to step up like that, without any effects - just a bit of distortion and echo. Amazing."

The impact of Red...

A life-long King Crimson fan, 40th Anniversary Editions producer, Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson, offers his thoughts on Red.

"For me the record is dominated by the opening and closing tracks. I think you can almost argue that these two tracks are the record. I remember the first time I heard this music was on the Young Person's Guide To King Crimson and one whole side of that record was Red and Starless. I remember thinking this must be the best album in the world, and then buying the album and being kind of disappointed a little bit about the rest of it. I've grown to like it very much, and the other three tracks are terrific too, but I think these two tracks are landmarks, real masterpieces.

It's the record where you can say King Crimson and progressive rock has finally shaken off any vestige of the Tolkien-esque aspects where the language is quite flowery.  You can still hear some of that on albums like Larks' Tongues In Aspic on tracks such as Book of Saturday. Here, this is almost looking forwards to punk rock, flushing away the last remnants of the flower power, Sgt Peppers type music.

It's actually quite a nihilistic record. When Fripp changes the repeated note to the tritone or 'devil's interval' in Starless it sounds wrong but it works so well. There's more of that "fuck you" attitude. You can't imagine anything further away from the prog rock manifesto. Can you imagine Yes playing something like that? No way! Even the Floyd, although there music was quite simple they would never have played anything that discordant and so relentlessly.

What I hear on Red is the best representation of that line-up in the studio. They seem to have finally realised how to get most of that live energy onto tape. The thing that occurs to me the most about is that the more members this line-up lost, the heavier it got. This album is in effect a power trio record, very often it's just guitar, bass and drums but the sound is just huge."
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