Friday Evening Prayer Meeting

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If you have about 8 minutes to spare, go grab your earbuds, jam them in your earholes, and give this a listen.



The personnel and sound of this ensemble are so different from the original lineup that it always seemed odd to me they would retain the name King Crimson. (Compare it with this sound, which I posted last year.) It's an assemblage that might still be considered experimental today for its combination of Mellotrons, other deftly deployed electronics, violin and viola, and more percussion devices than you can shake a stick at. And that's not to mention Robert Fripp's guitar, John Wetton's vocals, or drums by Bill Bruford, who flew the coop from Yes as that group was stagnating into a mess. King Crimson can and does sound sweet, dense as a rainforest canopy, art-rocky, fraught with portent, and even lummoxy in turn, as they please.

"Exiles" and the tune that precedes it ("Book of Saturday") comprise the "pretty" passage of the album, with moody but heartfelt lyrics about loss and healing. This one begins with a swelling, impressionistic collage of electronica that evokes the narrator's "banana boat ride" from the prior track. The "actual song" begins about 2 minutes in. Every musician stays in his own register, integrated well enough to sound whole while clearly conveying the sense of isolation that the lyrics paint.

There's much, much more to this album, though, and I wish I could play the whole thing for you, loud as hell, in hi fi, with a nice pair of Sennheiser cans clamped to your skullbone.

Exiles, King Crimson (1973, from Lark's Tongues in Aspic, Atlantic SD 7263), via YouTube, embedded for noncommercial critical discussion and educational purposes.