King Crimson – Lizard (1970/2021)
Artist: King Crimson
Album: Lizard
Genre: Eclectic Prog
Label: Wowow Entertainment, Inc.
Year Of Release: 1970/2021
Quality: FLAC (tracks+.cue)
Tracklist:
1. Cirkus
2. Indoor Games
3. Happy Family
4. Lady Of The Dancing Water
5a. Lizard I
5b. Lizard II
5c. Lizard III
5d. Lizard IV
Bonus Tracks:
6. Lady Of The Dancing Water (Alternate Take)
7. Bolero (From ‘Frame By Frame’)
8. Cirkus (Studio Run Through With Guide Vocal From Original Sessions)
Personnel:
– Robert Fripp / guitar, Mellotron (1,2,5), synth & organ (2), electronics, co-producer
– Mel Collins / flute, saxophones
– Gordon Haskell / bass, vocals
– Andy McCulloch / drums
– Peter Sinfield / lyrics, VCS3 synth (2,3), co-producer
With:
– Jon Anderson / vocals (5a)
– Keith Tippet / piano, electric piano
– Robin Miller / oboe, cor anglais
– Mark Charig / cornet
– Nick Evans / trombone
Lizard is King Crimson’s third studio album. King Crimson released two studio albums in 1970, the latter of which was released in December, only about seven months after In The Wake Of Poseidon.
After In The Wake Of Poseidon, King Crimson was in a state of turmoil. The original line-up was down to guitarist Robert Fripp (b.1946) and lyricist/general visionary Peter Sinfield (b.1943) and the band hadn’t been back on the road since the tour following their debut album. Simply because no band really existed anymore. Drummer Michael Giles and multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald were working on their own duo album and bassist/vocalist Greg Lake had left to form the supergroup Emerson Lake & Palmer. The fact that the remaining duo of Fripp and Sinfield no longer got on well with each other also posed a further challenge. Their views on both a professional and personal level had begun to diverge. It is surprising that under these circumstances Fripp and Sinfield managed to create one of the most delicious albums of King Crimson and progressive rock as a whole.
Fripp recruited an old school friend, vocalist/bassist Gordon Haskell (b.1946), who had already sung a song on Poseidon, to work on Lizard. A young Mel Collins (b.1947), who had also played with Poseidon, was asked to play the wind instruments, and Andrew McCulloch (b.1945), who had played with Manfred Mann and others, was brought in to play the drums, his playing style owing a great deal to his predecessor Michael Giles.
The process of creating this album was a challenging one. Robert Fripp composed all the music on the album and dictated every last detail of it to his band, with an ironclad and sometimes so blunt style that the band members were in tears more than once during the recording sessions. Except for the harder-edged Haskell, who took a humorous approach to the whole thing, finding Fripp’s complex music and Sinfield’s labyrinthine, intricate lyrics mostly laughable. One of Haskell’s honest reactions to the music, a disbelieving burst of laughter, was even recorded as part of the chillingly hilarious ending of ’Happy Family’. And it has to be said that despite his reluctance, Haskell does a very good job on the album. His vocals seem to have just the right, slightly detached, lightly mocking circus director tone that fits the album like a bearded lady in a circus tent ( I get my coat). And Haskell isn’t bad as a bass player either.
Lizard is King Crimson’s most detailed and lavishly arranged album. Every detail sounds well thought out (even in the chaotic parts of the album) and there seems to be a huge amount of different things happening all the time on many different levels. The instrumentation is rich and the normal rock line-up is reinforced on almost every track with a variety of wind instruments, mostly played by Mel Collins (flutes, saxophones) of course, but also guest appearances by accomplished jazz musicians Robin Miller (oboe), Nick Evans (trombone) and Mark Charig (cornet). Lizard is also King Crimson’s most keyboard-intensive album, and the wildly chaotic piano pummelling of Keith Tippett, who has made a name for himself in the British free jazz scene, finds a nice place on the album alongside Fripp’s own Mellotron. The most successful use of the highly skilled Tippett is in the massive collaborative moments of the ferocious ”Happy Family”. Of these moments, a not so impressed Haskell told Fripp that Tippetti’s playing sounds like a cat walking on keyboards. To this Fripp replied: ”Yes, but Keith knows what he’s doing, the cat doesn’t”.
One thing that enriches Lizard’s instrumentation is Fripp’s really great acoustic guitar playing that can be heard here and there on the album. Especially the fast runs of the opening track ”Circus” are great to hear. In a certain controlled chaos, they are a fitting counterpoint to Keith Tippett’s ferocious pianism on the album. It’s a pity Fripp has since used acoustic guitar so little on King Crimson.
The highlight of the album is the 20+ minute title track ”Lizard” which starts off beautifully calm with Tippet’s lyrical piano arrangement and Yes’ Jon Anderson’s vocals which seem to fit the song perfectly. Gradually, the song builds up with mellotron and drums, while Fripp plays electric guitar in the background with a thrillingly warbling sound (apparently a backwards recorded guitar). McCulloch’s drums give a foretaste of the bolero rhythms at the beginning of the song. The arrangement stays nice and simple and gives way to Anderson’s gorgeous and ethereal vocals. At the four-minute mark, however, the song bids farewell to Anderson and a new bolero section begins with a coolly piercing cornet. From this point on, the song steadily grows and becomes more complex, but in between, it elegantly slows down as if looking for speed before erupting again. ’Lizard’ alternates and mixes classical music, free-jazz, rock and even circus music in an unhinged but irresistible way. The moods are sometimes serenely beautiful, sometimes nightmarishly oppressive. Nothing like this has ever been heard before, and in fact, hardly ever heard since. King Crimson didn’t return to this exact twilight zone on their later albums either.
Released in December 1970, Lizard is King Crimson’s technicolour nightmare that is such an incredibly colourful and musically rich cornucopia that it originally struggled to fit into the paltry two stereo channels. The album, which was originally beautifully recorded by Robin Thompson, was a bit choked up in its original form and I think it is best done justice in the version remixed by Steven Wilson in 2009.
When it was released, Lizard received a mixed reception and it still seems to be one of the most divisive albums of King Crimson’s output. Some people can’t stand it and others, like myself, love its strangeness and uniqueness. Lizard was not a new beginning for the band. It was less successful than its predecessors and when Haskell left the band after a contentious recording session, Crimson didn’t go on tour again to promote the album and the next album Islands (1971) did little to build on it but took a completely new direction. Lizard is therefore a unique and somewhat disconnected anomaly in the King Crimson catalogue. But an extremely interesting one.
by JANNE YLIRUUSI
