King Crimson - Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part II (The Noise - Live At Fréjus 1982)

Ah, here we return to King Crimson in full flight, back in 1982. Looks suspiciously like we’re having fun in my ‘spiritual home with a bed of nails’. In 1982, confidence was sky high. We were pretty sure we were one of the better band’s on the block with an interesting perspective on how and what rock musicians should be doing, and what they should be doing it with. Lots of boobams, electronic drums, stick bass, guitar synthesisers, out-board effects processors and pink suits would all be in the mix. I’m playing double bass drums: the one on my left foot is a Simmons trash-metal ‘bass drum’, prominent here at 3’32”. The slashing 3-3-2-2 figure that begins the thing has links to Igor Stravinsky’s work. In musicologist Andrew Keeling’s words “[The 10/8 metre] bears some similarity to the ‘Auguries of Spring’ from [Stravinsky’s] the ‘Rite of Spring’ and Bartok’s ‘Bulgarian Dance No 153’ from ‘Mikrokosmos VI’, and… the theme music for the TV series ‘Mission Impossible’” (Keeling, A. A Musical Guide to Lar