Legendary Bands - King Crimson Posters

As heavy as metal, improvisatory as free jazz, and dynamically moving as a symphony, King Crimson's work is amongst the most pivotal and influential in modern music, artfully pushing rock way beyond the confines of verse-chorus structure and 4/4 time. Though absurd lyrics often serve as overwrought vocal vehicles for their melodies, the band's instrumental legacy is virtually without peer.

Evolving from British art-rock band Giles, Giles and Fripp, King Crimson was formed in 1969 by Robert Fripp and saxophonist Ian McDonald. Their debut was a semi-classical, mellotron-tinged soundtrack for the apocalypse, In The Court Of The Crimson King, the source of their trademark track, "21st Century Schizoid Man." Only Fripp remained after the jazzier In The Wake Of Poseidon. He became de facto leader for the even more obtuse Lizard (1970) and Islands (1971), both strained by thin material.

Though Fripp disagrees, 1972-74 yielded the ultimate Crimson--with drummer Bill Bruford, bassist John Wetton, violinist David Cross and, briefly, all-sorts percussionist Jamie Muir. They produced the band's most brilliantly conceived material--crisp, dramatic and dazzlingly syncopated--on Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Starless And Bible Black, and Red. Tougher and darker in concert, it was a mark of pride for this ensemble to launch into the unknown and emerge with great extemporaneous compositions.

Fripp and Bruford re-emerged in 1981 with pop-guitarist Adrian Belew, stick bassist Tony Levin and the desire to move bodies and well as brains. Discipline (1981), Beat (1982) and Three Of A Perfect Pair (1984) all offered big, dance-infected doses of harmonic intrigue and virtuoso playing. In 1995, after an 11-year hiatus, Fripp returned with a double-jointed Crimson--two guitar-bass-drum trios playing as one. The dual design pushed the band's cerebral jolt in fiery new directions and yielded a raw, live-sounding album Thrak, but didn't really take full advantage of the dueling trios concept.