B-side of Eno's 1974 7" "Seven Deadly Finns" had a unique (NP) edit titled "Later On". This is what Fripp used for Crimson concert intros back in the day.
I listened to both videos simultaneously, about a second apart - I recommend the experience! Apart from flipped left/right channels, they seem to be the same.
Good morning all. We seem to have started mentioning Swastika Girls already, and have touched on Later On some time before its place in the schedule All is good. But, now I'll 'officially' move on to today's track ('song' is definitely not appropriate). Swastika Girls. I can't find the track on YouTube. However it is available on Vimeo with a nice and recent looking picture of Brian and Robert taking tea outside, but that requires a login: Again, the track is annoyingly chopped up on Spotify: Part 1: Swastika Girls I Part 2: https://open.spotify.com/track/70nja5d4q4qWeyyy47MMJv?si=690caeda0b064103 Wikipedia says: "The second track "Swastika Girls", which fills the other side, was recorded almost a year after "The Heavenly Music Corporation" in August 1973 at Command Studios at 201 Piccadilly in London, where Fripp's King Crimson had recorded their acclaimed Larks' Tongues in Aspic album earlier that year. The track employed the same technique as "The Heavenly Music Corporation" except Fripp played to a background electronic loop created by Eno on VCS3. Fripp and Eno took the tapes of "Swastika Girls" to British record producer George Martin's AIR Studios at Oxford Circus to continue mixing and assembling the track there. The track's title refers to an image of nude women performing a Nazi salute that was ripped from a discarded pornographic film magazine found by Eno at AIR Studios. Eno stuck the image on the recording console while recording the track with Fripp and it became the title of the track." A comment on Reddit says 'Ambient music for the slightly psychotic in all of us.'. A review on Progrography.com says "“Swastika Girls,” recorded one year later, expands the sonic palette to the strumming of taut strings and some buzzsaw guitar leads that compete against an undercurrent of soothing melody." I think everyone knows the credits...
More comments about yesterday. I said that I hadn't really gotten into King Crimson. I didn't say it, but also I'm not too familiar with Robert Fripp's solo albums. I've heard and enjoyed some League of Crafty Guitarists music. Last night I actually fell asleep with (No Pussyfooting) playing through my headphones. When I woke it it was playing '(No Pussyfooting) Radio' and this has turned out to be a goldmine of fascinating music. Several King Crimson tracks played, all of which I liked. But, I can't remember the titles apart from 'Neal and Jack and Me'. And, some truly beautiful solo Fripp ambient tracks played as well. Over and above that, solo music by Harold Budd, Moebius solo, Cluster, and then as far as Gong, Gentle Giant, and lots of other interesting music. Already this thread is proving valuable in expanding my knowledge of music far beyond the two tracks we've covered.
Shepherd also suggests that Brian/Bryan friction was caused by Brian getting more "action" than Bryan.
There is a great documentary about Eno titled The Man Who Fell To Earth 1971-1977. One of his biographers, I forget who, talks a bit about how promiscuous Eno was. The gist was Ferry slept with models, while Eno would sleep with anyone.
It's available on YouTube, but strangely broken into 16 rather short parts. I've never claimed to be an Eno expert. I didn't know that Andy Mackay gave Brian his first synthesiser, that he used in Roxy and beyond. That's a major event in music history, I feel.
I never really understood what Eno did in Roxy until I saw this documentary. I thought he just made cool sounds on his gear, but he was actually treating the other instruments.
Swastika Girls Scratchier and more abrasive than “Heavenly Music”, and not as easily assimilated. It takes a while to hit its stride, but it really kicks in about halfway through with its various musical undercurrents. I like THMC a little better, but this is great too. 4/5
I forgot I had this album, in its entirety, on a Fripp & Eno CD I got from a library sale, which also included most of "Evening Star" and some terrible thing from the 80s(?) called "Healthy Colours". So I'm playing it right now! Anyway, this sort of thing has been done to death since, esp. once digital delay pedals came on the market, but this remains a top notch example of the *Get A Drone Going + Stick A Guitar Through A Sh*tload Of Pedals And Improvise Along With It subgenre. Eno rarely comes up with anything truly new but he is a genius at re-purposing and re-contextualising and this obviously follows on from Terry Riley's tape delay stuff. Fripp's guitar is sublime and count me as another person who has never managed to get very far with King Crimson. (*The French band Heldon and their leader Richard Pinhas picked up this ball and ran some way with it, if you're looking for something similar.)
I also fell asleep with this going on, but the rhythmic "buzz" of Swastika Girls kept making me think someone was texting me, which I'd not picked up on when listening to it awake, so I turned it off. I'm not overly familiar with Fripp solo, either, mostly his work with Andy Summers. Seems like Spotify has some nice ambient "singles" they were suggesting to me about a year ago, but I can't seem to find anything about them. I know a guy whose younger brother played (plays?) in the League of Crafty Guitarists, used to live in a castle, and now does music for video games. What a gig!!
I listened to this album, and Paris 1919, two days ago. So stinkin' great. I guess I didn't realize Eno was part of this...the man was EVERYwhere in the early to mid 70s. For the record, John Cale is my favorite VU alum (well, Sterling is, but has no real material out there aside from his work with the band), and I think his solo output is far superior to Mr. Reed's.
Moments of this remind me of John Cale's viola on the first VU album. Screech, squeak, screech... I love it!
Yes he certainly kept good company back then. I love that period, where the paths of so many great artists intersected.
Swastika Girls I think this is an interesting and enjoyable track. But, I think it isn't quite as successful as 'The Heavenly Music Corporation'. I do enjoy it more than first few times I heard the track, but the synth sound that starts the track sounds - not as well developed or sophisticated as the sounds on later pieces of work. The treated guitar on THMC I think stands up better today. It is true that the sound is modified and drifts away, and the rest of the track sounds better. But, it still to me is an interesting bit of early experimentation that isn't as sophisticated as what both participants would be doing in a few years. There is evolution in this track, but I feel again that THMC did the same better, with Fripp audibly injecting new ideas at various points in the track. New sounds do of course appear in SG, but for a while I don't find them as appealing somehow. I like the arpeggio guitar (or what sounds like it), but it's sort of ... normal. Eventually we get a Fripp lead, and that's very nice when it arrives. But, it arrives about 8 minutes into the track. I like the switching from more melodic to more dissonant sounds. But, once I'm used to that, I feel that there's too little development here. It perhaps doesn't help that when Spotify went into auto-play mode on me last night, I heard some beautiful Fripp ambient tracks - I'm not sure of the exact definition of 'Frippertronics' - where I feel the overall result was much better than here. I'm not surprised that later work tended to follow the THMC pattern rather than be more like SG. At least that's my impression. Overall, this is an interesting early experiment which doesn't quite stand up to either later work or the first track. Doesn't quite - it's still a good track in itself and if (NP) had been an EP with just this track it would still be an interesting 'start of it all'. 3.5/5
All that stuff is brilliant in my view and these artists all have place of pride in my music library. If you want to get more familiar with King Crimson, then I think, knowing a bit your musical tastes, you might want to start of with the "New Wave" King Crimson of the 1980s, i.e. the albums Discipline, Beat (which has "Neal and Jack and Me") and Three of a Perfect Pair. The music on these albums is clearly influenced by Robert and Adrian's work with Bowie, Talking Heads, etc. If you dig these albums, I would recommend their live album Absent Lovers: Live in Montreal from 1984 (released in 1998). Many King Crimson fans appreciate their (enormous) live output even more than their studio work (they are rightly famous for their improvs) and Absent Lovers is a fantastic document of the band in the 1980s and also includes a good number of essential songs from earlier albums. If this gets you hooked, then work your way backwards and forwards from there. Regarding Fripp's solo music, I love his soundscapes. My favorite is A Blessing of Tears, which he made shortly after his mother passed away. Despite being ambient and instrumental, it is a very emotional and beautiful piece of music.
Exactly. After reading your post and agreeing with basically everything, there wasn't much to add. So I decided to provide an executive summary for those with short attention spans.
Not to get too off topic Fripp's work with David Sylvian on "Gone To Earth" is one of my favourites. It is the 2nd disc of all instrumentals that I love and play often.
