Artist	Song
King Crimson [Discipline, 1981]	Thela Hun Ginjeet (6:36)
King Crimson [Larks' Tongues In Aspic, 1973]	Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part One (13:35)
King Crimson [Larks' Tongues In Aspic, 1973]	Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part Two (AKA: The Nascent Soul's Journey Into Light) (7:11)
King Crimson [Three of a Perfect Pair, 1984]	Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part Three (6:02)
King Crimson [The ConstruKction of Light, 2000]	Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part Four (including: I Have A Dream) (13:08)
King Crimson [The Beat Club, Bremen, 1972]	Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part One [live] (6:41)
King Crimson [Live at the Wiltern, disc 2, 1995]	Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part Two (AKA: The Nascent Soul's Journey Into Light) [live] (6:31)
King Crimson [Absent Lovers, disc 1, 1984]	Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part Three [live] (6:13)
King Crimson [Heavy ConstruKction, disc 2, 2000]	Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part Four (including: I Have A Dream) [live] (11:20)

Comment:

And so the Crimson floodgates open. Really, they've been one of my top two bands (flipping back and forth with They Might Be Giants) for quite some time now, and their songs have been popping up on my mixes since "12 Songs" last January, but, out of all due respect to the process of King Crimson itself, I haven't dared to do a single-artist mix until familiarizing myself with great swaths of their repertoire. 27 CDs in a little over a year.Right now the situation seems simple enough: King Crimson appears to me as the most thoughtful, progressive and revolutionary band I've ever heard (that's band as opposed to solo artist, mind). I've never known of another band to so thoroughly integrate its music into its vision of the world, without putting any obvious strictures onto the content of the music itself. And their music itself is an endless series of eggs inside eggs. (Stupid T-shirt idea: Everything you can think of to play has already been done better. By King Crimson.) Get a hold of the 27-minute-plus collective freeform improvisation "The Rich Tapestry Of Life", off the Bremen Beat Club album, and you'll see what I mean.I'm planning for this to be the first in a series of all-Crimson mixes: sometime after this a ways, look out for "Walking On Air: The Ballads of the Crimson King" and "Neon Heat Disease: The City Songs of the Crimson King." The tack is different here: mostly instrumental, though this is, of course, far from a KC instrumental overview.But it might not be what you think, either. The "Larks' Tongues In Aspic" series is not, despite the name, separate pieces of one gigantic, world-crushing prog-rock suite. In fact, "Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part One" and "Part Two" were composed separately by Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp before mad percussionist Jamie Muir ("one of the most highly evolved individuals on the planet") ever came up with the "Larks' Tongues" title. Since then, subsequent members of the series have been composed, all as stand-alone pieces, but under a definite conceptual unity that, hopefully, is what makes this mix (and mix concept!) so coherent (and. endearing!) in the first place.The "Larks' Tongues" pieces are, to a large extent, instrumental. The studio version of "Larks' Tongues Part One" features a randomly selected radio broadcast sample, which ended up being the play "Gallowglass" by John and Willy Maley, followed by three Crimson members shouting out random words they saw around the room; this live "Part One", which precedes it chronologically, misses out on this vocal interplay as well as on a large piece of the music, but absolutely coheres in its own right. "Larks' Tongues Part Two" is the only member of the series to feature absolutely no vocalization, but Fripp's story on the (unofficial) alternate title is almost as good: "'"Larks' Two", as a piece of writing, addresses the paradox of being simultaneously within the conditioned and unconditioned worlds.. "The Nascent Soul's Journey Into Light" might be a more literally descriptive title but I wouldn't have had the courage to use that in 1972, and probably not today either.'" (Sid Smith, In The Court Of King Crimson, Helter Skelter, London, 2001, p. 170.)"Larks' Tongues Part Three" medleys itself into bizarre funk track "Thela Hun Ginjeet" in the live version, and so the studio version - featuring vocalist Adrian Belew's unknowingly taped confession about nearly being mugged - introduces the set properly, much preferable to the shock dynamics of "Larks' One". And the series' final (for now) entry concludes with a short vocal section dubbed "I Have A Dream", Belew railing against all the injustices of modern history that he can pack in to a couple of minutes. Really, I'm surprised that I've never seen this mix idea before, but then again, all things King Crimson are exactly what one might never expect. Right now, I'm just proud that this cross-generational Crimson exists here - through my own power!

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