Artist	Song
King Crimson [Starless and Bible Black, 1974]	The Mincer (4:07)
King Crimson [In The Court Of The Crimson King, 1969]	21st Century Schizoid Man (7:26)
King Crimson [Lizard, 1970]	Cirkus (6:29)
King Crimson [Larks' Tongues in Aspic, 1973]	Easy Money (7:55)
King Crimson [Red, 1974]	One More Red Nightmare (7:09)
King Crimson [Islands, 1971]	Ladies of the Road (5:24) --->
King Crimson [In The Court Of The Crimson King, 1969]	Epitaph (8:46)
King Crimson [In The Wake Of Poseidon, 1970]	In The Wake Of Poseidon (7:56)
King Crimson [Starless and Bible Black, 1974]	The Great Deceiver (4:01)
King Crimson [Lizard, 1970]	Lady of the Dancing Water (2:45)
King Crimson [In The Court Of The Crimson King, 1969]	The Court of the Crimson King (9:32)
King Crimson [THRAK, 1995]	Dinosaur (6:37)

Comment:

I think I've got a new way of thinking about making mixes: I make the mixes that I feel are necessary to hear. Should be obvious, no? Hmm... not exactly. I'll still finish that "US States" mix sometime soon, I swear, but just making mixes out of fun themes, or whatnot -- it might just end up being more trouble than it's worth for something that isn't a solid musical statement. This one, though... it all came out of an inner flash of lightning. Even among all the world's albums... *this* CD (I tell myself!) is necessary.In this case, it comes out of a dream: There's this guy who (for some bizarre, unknown reason, I keep telling myself!) lots of my friends persist in hanging out with, though I've always found him quite pompous and difficult to be around. Coming out of the soft velvet nowhere of sleep, then, I started to dream of him and myself gallivanting down the street together in a joint chorus -- and the song we were singing was King Crimson's "Cirkus".Of course! Why didn't I see it before? Prog rock -- just the thing to tame an ego-racked spirit! These twelve tracks of colorful King Crimson, then, collected with this particular personality in mind, have some things in common. They're all songs -- none of your abstract instrumental stuff for this mix (for that, see my previous King Crimson mix, The Nascent Lark's Tongue's Journey Into Aspic). They're all rather dramatic -- the interlocking-guitar new-wave period and the "moving away from song structures" of the recent Power To Believe era aren't represented, being more ambient than theatrical in their approach to vocals. (As befitting someone who likes to present himself, he's a big theater buff.) Other than the introductory wind-up of "The Mincer", they're all "heavy" -- if not in musical content ("Lady of the Dancing Water") then at least in themes addressed; I suppose this is the sort of thing that puffs them up with extravagance in the eyes of balloon-poppers. Plenty of other Crimson songs I adore ("Fallen Angel", "Formentera Lady") have a bit too much subtlety for this mix, hence the title -- I'm planning to put these on future mixes!! Except for "Dinosaur", they all also belong to Crimson's pure, untempered prog period of 1969-1974; "Dinosaur", preceded by ten seconds of silence, functions as a shrill bonus-track update to that glorious excessive Crimson sound.I happen to think they're also all great songs...! "The Mincer", a vocal overdub over a sort of searching-for-light-in-the-darkness type of group improv (why doesn't that sort of thing happen more often?) doesn't get much respect from the band; I only think they were embarrassed at the vulnerability it showed. The insane "Cirkus", as well as playing dream's linchpin, is my favorite Sinfield lyric ever -- maybe vying with "Fallen Angel" to be my favorite Crimson song -- and its "accompaniment which declines to accompany" that Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp now scoffs at is really, I'd say, an essential part of the track. The trickily lax "Easy Money" almost has a reggae attitude in the middle (improv) section, and "The Great Deceiver" is structurally a heavier, careering version of a Van Morrison-type pop concoction. Plenty of stuff here for a self-described aristocrat to relate to, no? Especially one who adores both Aerosmith and Carmina Burana... now if only I can get it to him without embarrassing myself....(Total time: 78:12. Track 6, it may be noted, crossfades into track 7.)

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