Kingdom of Rain

Mostly known as an incisive, polemical rabble-rouser who constituted an annoying thorn in the side of Margaret Thatcher’s Tory regime of the 1980s, one-man band The The, also known as Matt Johnson, was also an keen observer of the human condition, detailing all the peculiarities unique to men and women. One of Johnson’s more engaging, non-political numbers is 1989’s ‘Kingdom of Rain’, a haunting duet with Irish rebel poet Sinéad O'Connor that became a minor independent-chart hit. This regret-ridden, tension-tight ode to a deceased relationship gets an appropriately edgy, noirish video-clip treatment, complete with all manner of non-sequitur images and bleak-cityscape views. Oddly enough, O’Connor herself didn’t appear in the promo, instead being replaced by a ghostly, blank-faced, blue-lit avatar that adds to the overall sense of surreal disconnection.

Falling Down Blue

Blue Rodeo remains one of Canada’s best kept musical secrets, despite having put out numerous albums since the mid-80s, and winning a handful of Juno Awards (Canada’s equivalent of the Grammies). It’s easy to see why the roots-rockers do not enjoy the same sort of acclaim as more illustrious Canuck rockers like Neil Young, Bryan Adams or The Band: they specialise in putting out songs about chronic heartaches, hard economic times, desolate country towns and other less-than-cheery subjects, all set to some of the most understated and bare-bones music ever committed to record. Here’s an example of Blue Rodeo’s subtle craftsmanship, the elegantly poised, lounge-jazz-influenced ‘Falling Down Blue’, which gets an appropriately low-key monochromatic video-clip treatment.

Jean the Birdman

A top-quality collaboration between two art-rock authorities materialised in 1993, when avant-pop stalwart David Sylvian teamed up with King Crimson head honcho Robert Fripp for the stupendously excellent ‘The First Day’ album. ‘The First Day’ was an astonishingly adept record that effortlessly redefined the boundaries of modern-day progressive rock, while laying down some purposeful, superior-quality guitar grooves and spacey, patented Frippertronics courtesy of Fripp, expertly blended with some of Sylvian’s most confident and upfront vocals. While this sort of masterfully crafted neo prog-rock possesses not an iota of commercial-chart aspiration, it does constitute a rare, wondrous gift for aficionados of the genre, not to mention faithful fans of both Sylvian and Fripp. Check out the intentionally kaleidoscopic, appropriately surreal video clip for the sole single from this historic partnership, the cerebrally rugged and funky pop-rock composition ‘Jean the Birdman’.

Daydream Nation

With the release of 1988's 'Daydream Nation', erstwhile avant-garde rock pioneers Sonic Youth finally and decisively consolidated their credentials as elder statesmen of alternative rock. While previous efforts like 1986's 'Evol' and 1987's 'Sister' were commendable exercises in melding leftfield songcraft with the band's noise-terror approach, 'Daydream Nation' successfully corrals the past sonic aggressiveness into a more streamlined sensibility. This new archetype made for a better, more realised vision of Sonic Youth's artistry, in which the unorthodox, the primal, and the poppishness coalesce into a single innovative totality.

The boldly defiant anti-anthem 'Teenage Riot' sounds as riveting as ever, while 'Providence' is rightfully hazy in its shifting fever-dream musicality. 'Eliminator Jr.' is an exercise in controlled cacophony, and 'Hyperstation' is almost skeletal in its short, controlled bursts of staccato guitar chords.

Elsewhere, 'Total Trash' is a piece of low-key, mildly threatening white noise, while 'Silver Rocket' kicks out the jam with its punky demeanour. The cascading 'Eric's Trip' practically rolls with waves of feedback, and the terrifying 'Cross the Breeze' revels in a venomous arrangement that borders on speed-metal. The group also indulged in a bit of social commentary here, skewering Hollywood shallowness on 'Kissability' and lampooning American consumer culture on 'The Sprawl'. The most accessible instance on the album comes in the form of the relatively 'normal' rocker' 'Candle', which bears the immortal lyric "Wind is whipping through my stupid mop".

In short, the overall disposition of 'Daydream Nation' is nothing short of stunning, and perfectly illustrates how well performance-art aesthetics can be seamlessly embodied within fairly conventional rock structures. Even though Sonic Youth would go on to achieve greater commercial heights in the 1990s and beyond, this album still represents the band at the height of their powers, and still sounds remarkably cohesive, well-rounded and self-assured, more than twenty years after it was first put out. Aficionados of classic alt-rock can do no wrong by investing in this confirmed genre tour de force.

Red by King Crimson

The music that progressive-rock pioneers King Crimson made in the mid-1970s continues to be a rather contentious issue, even amongst avid aficionados who possess every single one of the band’s recordings. On the one hand, supporters would refer to the mind-expanding improvisatory instrumental jams and the virtuosic musical aptitude that luminaries like Bill Bruford, John Wetton and Jamie Muir brought to the table as proof of the enduring qualities of the music. On the contrary, detractors would charge the same long-winded instrumental jams as nothing more but artistic self-indulgence, and would also point to the lack of coherent melodic structures and intentionally complicated production values as evidence that King Crimson was deliberately making life difficult for their fans.

While King Crimson’s mid-1970s-era material continues to inspire endorsement and exasperation in roughly equal measures, one album does stand out from the rest of the three albums that were released between 1972 and 1974. This particular record is 1974’s ‘Red’, which, incidentally, was the 1970s King Crimson line-up’s last album before bandleader Robert Fripp decided to retire the King Crimson name, albeit temporarily until 1981. ‘Red’ stood out by virtue of its tighter, more focused songwriting and more purposeful performances (although artistic excess did exist in places), as compared to the dissonance of the preceding ‘Larks’ Tongues in Aspic’ and ‘Starless and Bible Black’, making it arguably the most resonant and accessible of the three albums.

This newly minted surround-sound reissue of ‘Red’ fleshes out the inherent muscularity of the original music, making it the definitive version of the album. The remastering does help in spades, especially in bringing out the hitherto buried tonal shades of the opening proto-metal instrumental ‘Red’, a cacophonous but still melodic tour de force that compellingly displays Fripp’s one-of-a-kind tri-tone guitar-riffing method. The following ‘Fallen Angel’ is an expansive six-minute ballad that abounds with lots of interesting sonic details like oboes, cellos and alto saxophones, while the guttural, raucous ‘One More Red Nightmare’ is an explicit showcase for percussion, a psychedelia-tinged rocker with death-defying metrical changes.

‘Providence’ marks the one instance on ‘Red’ when King Crimson lapsed into musical indulgence, a freeform instrumental improvisation that is both calculatedly chaotic and whimsical, and ends up neither here nor there. Thankfully, the band did a fair bit of bootstrapping for the concluding, twelve-minute epic ‘Starless’, a carefully crafted, multi-segmented showcase that seems to incorporate everything that contributes to King Crimson’s artistic majesty: melancholy, slightly medieval-influenced balladic elements, aggressive riff-based counterpoints and dissonant improvisational changes, making for a very apt swan song for this formation of the group.

So, even if King Crimson’s music in the 1970s still constitutes a bone of contention amongst its community of hardcore fans, ‘Red’ does prove that there is a large measure of validity to the material put out back then. It’s a futile exercise to compare ‘Red’ to the awe-inspiring 1969 debut ‘In the Court of the Crimson King’ or any of the latter-day, streamlined albums released from the 1980s onwards, simply because it operates on a different level of artistry altogether. Therefore, ‘Red’ must be assessed on its own terms, and in doing so, one can finally recognise its core values and appreciate its true artistic standing, without any inappropriate comparison to other Crimson albums. The best way to do so is to get hold of this remastered edition, which also doubles up as an essential and effective introduction to a particular stage of King Crimson’s artistic evolution.

Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence

Amidst all the acclamation that veteran musical Renaissance man Ryuichi Sakamoto has garnered in his extensive and varied career, a little-mentioned but nonetheless essential facet of his artistry is his dexterity as a concert pianist par excellence, which has been proven time and again in numerous onstage solo performances in diverse locations all over the world. For a stellar example of Sakamoto's painfully perfectionist ivory-tickling acumen, check out this devastatingly, emotionally stirring recital of his undelible theme from Nagisa Oshima's existentialist war epic 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence', during a 2005 jaunt.

In the Court of the Crimson King

Has there been a more electrifying and attention-grabbing debut album in rock history than ‘In the Court of the Crimson King’, the 1969 introduction of seminal progressive-rock legends King Crimson? The short answer is an unqualified no. It is easy to discern why 'In the Court of the Crimson King' is held in such high regard in critics’ circles and amongst serious rock fans. Everything is pitch-perfect on this era-defining album, from the towering, overwhelming music, which successfully merges disparate genres like psychedelic rock, baroque classicism, avant-garde jazz and folk balladry into an artistic totality that is almost frightening in its dexterous execution, to the physical packaging, whose macabre, fearsome album cover by the late Barry Godber remains one of the most indelible and arresting sleeve jacket ever produced.

It is also on this mammoth, influential record that all the essential artistic elements of King Crimson came together to form a seamless whole: the death-defyingly accurate and proficient playing aptitude, the abstract, intuitive lyrics that oftentimes border on the outrageous and surreal, and the elaborate, intelligent production values which hold everything together effortlessly. It is no wonder that subsequent King Crimson endeavours are invariably compared, frequently unfavourably and unfairly, to this antecedent record whose cultural relevance still resonates strongly today.

‘In the Court of the Crimson King’ now gets a long-deserved 5.1 surround-sound release, which efficiently fleshes out all the detailed instrumental nuances and tonal colours of the five-song set. This is good news indeed for those King Crimson aficionados who have been looking for a sonically superior replacement for their worn-out first-generation CD copies. This new remastering job benefits the proceedings greatly, especially on the awe-inspiring opener ’21st Century Schizoid Man’, King Crimson’s undisputed signature tune, and a virtual precursor to and benchmark for all forms of rock music to come (its tempestuous post-bop jazz middle-eight section sounds particularly provocative here).

The following ‘I Talk to the Wind’, an airily placid and melodic medieval madrigal, makes for a sudden but welcome change in pace from the sonic frenzy of ’21st Century Schizoid Man’, with its poignant flute solos and low-key double-bass underpinning. Next up is the hauntingly sinister, nine-minute multi-segmented symphonic suite ‘Epitaph’, which abounds with a surfeit of apocalyptic lyrical imagery ("The wall on which the prophets wrote, is cracking at the seams, confusion will be my epitaph").

Elsewhere, ‘Moonchild’ is a defiantly experimental set piece that is divided into two sections: the first is a delicate, folk-influenced pastoral ballad with lyrics that could have been lifted straight from a medieval troubadour’s sonnet, while the second is an elongated, improvisatory instrumental portion that makes for a respectable template for the ensuing minimalist-classical movement of the 70s.

The concluding almost-title track ‘The Court of the Crimson King’ is perhaps the most creatively realised and musically majestic composition here. Underlaid with an exceptionally inspired lyrical depiction of Lucifer’s palace in Hades, this cathedral-sized, sonically dramatic, Mellotron-driven symphony, capably bone-chilling in its intensity, makes for one hell of a grand finale to one of the greatest rock albums of all time.

In short, the singularity of vision on ‘In the Court of the Crimson King’ remains fiercely undiminished and dynamically commanding, despite the passing of four decades since it was originally unleashed on an unsuspecting public. Nothing released since has come close to the album’s fundamental, calculated power and uncompromisingly intellectual musical structures, and it’s certainly no overstatement to say that this is one album that can be safely regarded as belonging to a far, lofty roost completely removed from and above any capricious vagaries of the day. An outstanding, breathtaking reissue of a true rock-music classic, and one that rightfully belong in any self-respecting rock fan’s record collection, or any record collection for that matter.