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With “The power to believe” innovative
quartet King Crimson proves that you don’t have to send hundreds of
thousands of soldiers to war. You can battle out your anger on any
musical instrument you like resulting in a power you will only
encounter in a nuclear plant. The KC recipe hasn’t changed that much
over the years as we still encounter a great deal of repetition in
their music however Fripp’s guitar now battles against the warr
guitar of Trey Gunn and the well measured antics of Adrian Belew.
The guy who’s controlling it all is Pat Mastelotto who gives the
right signals at the right time putting percussive accents to the
indeed difficult music. At first I was surprised when I saw the name
King Crimson pop up at some jazz festivals but once you put your
teeth in this album you know that KC is never far away from the
originality and technicality of jazz. As with jazz this isn’t the
kind of CD you put on whilst you’re doing a myriad of other things.
This music demands full concentration. Throughout the years these
guys have also learned heaps what studio techniques is concerned so
what they offer you is the best result they can obtain in a studio
today.
The opening section for ‘Elektrik’
sounds so simple but if you know KC then you can bet your socks off
something difficult will follow it. As predicted we’re absolutely
right because a more complex rhythm sporting lots of Fripp delight
follows it. On one hand you get the dark sounding, aggressive rhythm
on the other hand the fragile nature of Fripp’s guitar. Like
electricity (‘Elektrik’) you can’t see it but it’s definitely there
... and very dangerous !
Mastelotto perfectly illustrates his
talented skills what timing is concerned during the short ‘Facts of
life (intro)’ followed in it’s footsteps by the fierce ‘Facts of
life’ with once again damned powerful drumming by Pat. ‘The power to
believe II’ takes us back to the east where the atmosphere is set by
means of authentic acoustic percussion resulting in a kind of
meditation. It’s a fantastic composition with layer after layer of
superb music as if it concerns multiple layers of varnish covering a
valuable piece of antiques. ‘Dangerous curves’ is an ingenious piece
of music which builds and builds gaining more and more power as time
evolves and kind of exploding towards the end.
In order to make the wait for the new
album a little more bearable the band issued ‘Happy with what you
have to be happy with’ as a single. King Crimson issuing singles is
not what I would call perfect marketing but then again they probably
knew all along that the new album would take much longer than
expected. The song isn’t really representative for the album either
but as a ‘shock effect’ in small circles maybe it could have done
the trick. When I compare this track with the rest of the material
on offer here I tend to skip this track altogether and get on with
the ‘real’ stuff ! With ‘The power to believe III’ it’s as if we’re
heading back to the band’s “Red” period. Again great timing from
Mastelotto who at one time speeds down his rhythm drastically. The
album closes with ‘Coda’ based on some wonderful soundscapes. No
doubt a difficult album but then again we wouldn’t want Crimson to
deliver anything else would we ? Certainly from a technical point of
view both composition and recording wise “The power to believe”
outshines a lot of releases. However the difficult nature of it all
might not directly translate the genius into healthy salesfigures.
War
and peace on CD. No doubt Tolstoj would be pleased ! |
