Review Summary: This is a unique album in King Crimson’s discography. Maybe their weakest work in the 70’s, still a great album.
“Islands” is the fourth studio album of King Crimson and was released in 1971. The line up on the album is Robert Fripp, Peter Sinfield, Mel Collins, Boz Burrell and Ian Wallace. The album had also the participation of Paulina Lucas, Keith Tippett, Robin Miller, Mark Charig, Harry Miller and some unaccredited string musicians as guests.
King Crimson was born on January 13th 1969 in the Fulham Palace Cafe, London with Robert Fripp, Ian McDonald, Greg Lake, Michael Giles and Peter Sinfield, coming to prominence after supporting The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park. Their ground-breaking debut album, “In The Court Of The Crimson King” of 1969, was described by Pete Townshend as “an uncanny masterpiece”. With that album, they began a career that has spanned for decades and influenced many bands.
King Crimson is one of the most unstable, yet durable bands in the prog rock scene. Despite long breaks and changing occupations, the group under the leadership of Robert Fripp has constantly reinvented itself without losing its identity. In 1971, King Crimson was again disintegrating from within after the release of “Lizard”, with Fripp, Sinfield and Collins left trying to put the pieces together and assemble a new band. Into the band arrived some new fresh names. The result is a King Crimson’s album that is almost overlooked in their discography, but actually holds up quite well almost fifty years after its release. Filled with more jazz influences than earlier releases, “Islands” is somewhat of an oddity, but still filled with powerful performances that show the talents of the musicians and the strong compositional skills of Fripp.
In all the years of its existence, in all its changes and with all their releases, this formation around the guitarist Robert Fripp represents, for me, the Progressive Rock Band par excellence. Again and again, new paths were entered here, something new tried out, independently of the prevailing musical taste of the wide mass. There are many “islands” that you can navigate with the music of King Crimson. And “Islands” has become a true island in the history of the band. “Islands” is, for me, one of their catchiest albums, although the album can also be disturbing to the listener. This fact, however, makes this album released exactly to the exciting album, which it has become in the end. Maybe “Islands” is the “black sheep” of the all discography of King Crimson in the 70’s, but it remains an amazing and surprising work.
About the tracks, “Formentera Lady” is a beautiful track that kicks things off, a ten minute jazz rock number with plenty of atmosphere, thanks to Collins’ dreamy flute and sax, and Wallace’s waves of percussion. On “Sailors Tale”, Fripp launches into a sizzling guitar solo over frenzied sax, drums, and waves of Mellotron. This is a notable piece of music, one of my favourites on the album. “The Letters” starts off quite serene and tranquil, before a monstrous Fripp solo and a Collins sax squeal bursts through the speakers. It’s a melancholic ballad pretty dark, which reflects the sadness and anger. The bluesy, jazzy, funky, “Ladies Of The Road” provides the album’s most direct arrangement, a rocking piece with a sleazy vocal from Boz and a tasty solo from Fripp, who gives it up to Collins to finish out the piece. There’s a strong classical chamber feel to “Prelude: Song Of The Gulls”. This is a notable piece of symphonic and classical music, one of the best pieces I’ve ever heard. On the twelve minute epic “Islands”, Boz kicks it off with a gentle vocal alongside Tippett’s lush piano strains, eventually giving way to haunting Mellotron, oboe, cornet, and full band ensemble before quietly fading away. It’s a calm and beautiful song with great arrangements and with some nice solos.
King Crimson releases are renowned for their artwork. “Islands” features the Trifid Nebula situated in the Sagittarius constellation which is represented as a Centaur drawing a bow, mythical creatures that were half human, half horse and often treated as liminal beings. Liminal beings are ambiguous, and challenge cultural paths of social classification, caught between two natures, embodied in myth and untamed nature. This statement may baffle, but on deeper reflection, it basically sums “Islands”, but if we extrapolate further, the whole ethos of King Crimson’s artistic creativity.
Conclusion: As I wrote above, maybe “Islands” can be the “black sheep”, the less interesting work and the album with the weakest line up in all history of King Crimson. Maybe it’s all that. But it’s also, for me, a fascinating and charming album, a unique piece, a true island in all King Crimson’s discography. So, many have seen “Islands” as the weakest of all King Crimson’s albums released in the 70’s, the less innovative, somewhat restrained and uneven sounding, and awkwardly a pretentious work. I really can’t agree with that. “Islands” is an album with many facets. It’s a laid back album that reveals its charm gradually and only occasionally decides that the listener needs to be beaten over the head, with the full power of the group. “Islands” was one of my first vinyl purchases. I always loved it. It remains as one of the lost classic albums of the 70’s. This is a quiet, beauty and elegant work, which you can appreciate the more you hear it.
Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)
