by Tom Johnson
Just because King Crimson is one of my all-time favorites doesn’t mean that I have to trot out the old standard In the Court of the Crimson King. I don’t particularly care for it, regardless of its standing as a prog-classic. The one that I return to, time and time again, is 1995’s Thrak. Not because it was my first — because it wasn’t — but because it was the first that really involved me in the music. The rest that I had up to that point — Starless and Bible Black, Red, Discipline, Beat — I listened to, but not into. Thrak got me to sit down and really tear apart the music, listening for each note and how it reflected on what another musician was playing, like good free jazz would cause you to do. It’s probably no coincidence that jazz was just starting to make a serious dent in my musical life at this point. Where many have come and gone, however, King Crimson has stayed.
Half Notes is a quick-take music feature on Something Else! Reviews, presented whenever the mood strikes us.
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