LADIES OF THE ROAD
by KING CRIMSON

Great music in a deeply flawed package

By Rick Hines, June 26, 2020

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

First, the best. The music here is very engaging. Compared to "Earthbound," the official live album from this quartet, this is both sonically superior and offers a more balanced look at the material the band played. A great deal of "Earthbound" was given over to loose bluesy jams which were not this outfit's strong point. Here, we get full fledged songs that show off the band's power and ingenuity with improvisation within song formats. The first disc speaks for itself. My only quibble is the "abridged" version of "Formentera Lady." I can see trimming a jam track like "Groon" a bit to remove the places where the musicians were treading water waiting for the next idea to come by, but removing a perfectly good verse from a song? Oh, well, I can always hear it unedited on the original Collector's Club CD.

The second disc consists of a nearly hour-long spliced together take of "21st Century Schizoid Man." The musicians play the beginning of the song, then launch into the improvisational middle section, only to never return. In lesser hands, this would prove incredibly tedious. What we end up with is a seething rhythm section that bends into many shapes without losing the groove. Above that, Robert Fripp's guitar flies off in so many directions it's hard to keep track. From time to time, Mel Collins steps forward and contrasts Fripp's smooth sustained leads with his own earthy sax wailing and honking. While this is a studio-edited contrivance, it reminds me of nothing so much as John Coltrane's late, extended work, particularly "Live at the Village Vanguard Again" and "Live in Japan." Ian Wallace's drumming sounds influenced by Rashied Ali's work, putting down a beat that never seems to repeat and rolls like thunder through the song. Boz Burrell simulates Jimmy Garrison with a barely perceived low end throbbing. Meanwhile, like some sort of John Coltrane/Pharoah Sanders clone, Fripp and Collins throw out every possible idea they can think of, so it seems. All we need are some of Alice Coltrane's atonal piano tinkerings. Breathtaking.

Now the bad. This is one messed up presentation. The cover claims there is a short bit of "In the Court of the Crimson King" at the end of CD 1. First, "In the Court..." is the album title. The song title omits the "In." But more importantly, it's not "In the Court...," it's the beginning of "Pictures of a City," and appears to be excerpted from the same take that starts the CD. So buyer beware.

Secondly, the long version of "21st Century Schizoid Man," titled "Schizoid Men," is really messed up. Towards the end of the song, the music suddenly stops. There is about a one minute silence before the song starts up again, only to be cut off abruptly just before the actual conclusion. How did this get past quality control? How do I know that this is an error and not a planned track with a "hidden" song at the end? Because the CD comes with auto-Rip. The mp3 version of this song plays correctly from begging to end, with no break in the middle and a proper fade-out (although it's a quick one). I recently purchased the "Earthbound (40th Anniversary Series)" CD/DVD which also contains "Schizoid Men" on the DVD. It's also the defective version.

Robert Fripp has been quite fastidious about maintaining the King Crimson catalog. I'm really amazed that this amount of chaos drifted into the project. I would recommend purchasing the mp3 version of the album with the unbroken "Schizoid Man" and which does not come with the repeated fragment of "Pictures of a City." The mp3 even comes with a pdf booklet, so you don't miss any liner notes or pictures.

So, a qualified 4-star review. The music (especially as presented in the mp3 format) is simply the best you're going to hear from this outfit. There's more to these guys than was heard on "Islands" and "Earthbound." The mastering or editing job on the CD merits taking off at least one star. Let the buyer beware!