King Crimson - Three Of A Perfect Pair

Here’s another Crate Digger flashback from last year. This originally appeared on Crawdaddy.com in August 2010. -rh

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After seeing his brainchild endure several line-up changes since their inception in the late 60s, 1984 found Robert Fripp enjoying some well-earned stability in the King Crimson ranks. From the seeds of that stability had grown a newfound collective persona and brotherly camaraderie heretofore unknown in the court of the Crimson King. The trusty and crafty Bill Bruford remained well-entrenched behind the drum-kit while glowing eyes and fiendish mustache obscured the true nature of bassist Tony Levin’s Papa Bear warmth. Another relative newcomer to the crew, singer/guitarist Adrian Belew had already established himself as integral to the new Crimson chemistry. Having originally assembled this quartet as a foundation for a new project, Fripp surreptitiously resurrected King Crimson.

Following on the heels of the early 80s releases Discipline and Beat, Crimson’s caustic chemistry had been supercharged by extensive touring. With their iconic, uncluttered cover art rooted in the primary colors, Crimson closed out a sly and mighty triumvirate with 1984’s Three Of A Perfect Pair.

From its opening measures the title track seamlessly blends Crimson’s machine-like accuracy and tricky time signatures with the emotional vulnerability of Adrian Belew’s lyrics and soaring vocals. With its peculiar meter and overlapping polyrhythms, the tune is an odd, angular beauty, like a musical conversation between several of Picasso’s deliriously fractured cubist creations or a Blues from another planet. Focus your ear on Bill Bruford’s hypnotic drum patterns, alternating sixes and sevens from verse to chorus. The drum pattern alone is enough to put you in a trance.

After only a few short years in the fold, Belew sounds confident and expansive here. Already a journeyman guitarist, his lyrics, vocals, and singular guitar style defined this era in Crimson’s long career. No mean feat when you share guitar duties with a force as formidable as Mr. Fripp. But then again no one has ever accused Adrian Belew of being an unremarkable guitarist.

Perhaps the Fripp & Belew dynamic is the most obvious oil-and-water corollary in support of this bizarre musical dichotomy of robotic precision and playful abandon. Where Fripp is calculating, seated at his guitar station like a scientist in the laboratory or a patent clerk at his desk, Belew’s unbridled emotion abounds as he emphatically croons about human frailties and makes outrageous animal sounds with his guitar.

At the time of this album’s release in 1984, it was no stretch to think that Crimson was capable of earning some long overdue chart success. That same year their Prog mates in Yes were riding high on the unlikely and unprecedented success of 90125. John Wetton and Greg Lake, both former members of the Fripp fold, had also scored big with Asia’s debut in 1982. So why not the Crims? On this record in particular it was a tune called “Sleepless” that many thought had crossover potential. Levin’s insistent bass groove propelled “Sleepless”, a tune that was admittedly accessible by Crimson standards. Alas, the music industry’s preconceived notions and a small label’s non-existent publicity budget conspired to extend Crimson’s obscurity. The bulk of this long player is far from radio-friendly. One doubts it was Fripp’s insomniac ruminations over that elusive hit single that inspired “Sleepless”. The gurgling sonic lava of “Nuages” and the spooky obstinance of “Industry” are hardly Top Forty fodder. While Belew crooned “Sleepless”, Dick Clark slept soundly with dreams of Debbie Gibson dancing in his head.

There has long been a popular misconception of Fripp as the stoic and humorless ringleader of Crimson. With Three Of A Perfect Pair perhaps the puppet master Fripp consciously allowed for the impression that maybe Adrian Belew was running the show. Indeed, Belew’s lyrics and vocals take center stage here. Often dominating the record, Adrian’s plaintive pleas just might be its most recognizable trait. Fripp is undeniably the Crimson king, but he knows in order to make it work he has to let his all-star players off the leash. Certainly it is this loose discipline that allows Tony Levin to run amok on the bass guitar. Fripp instinctively trusts Levin, who reciprocates that trust by always keeping a firm footing in the groove. No simple task when wrangling the 12-string Chapman stick and playing a song in a 21/7 time signature!

(Special attention must be given to Tony Levin who brought the Chapman Stick to its widest exposure. The Stick is essentially a giant fretboard with up to 12 strings. It has a wide frequency range including bass and guitar strings and a very percussive tone. It is played by tapping or fretting the strings as opposed to the more conventional picking method. To this day, Levin is considered the pre-eminent master of the Stick.)

Unlike the simplistic cover art that adorned them, King Crimson’s early 80s releases were a three-pronged showcase for music that was anything but basic, simple or safe. Improved production techniques made the Crimson sound a little more palatable to the uninitiated. But the truth remained undeniable as ever – even in its new incarnation, King Crimson was still capable of crafting masterful and unpredictable Art Rock weirdness of the highest order.

This line-up later expanded into a “double-trio” including Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto and went on to create some of the most dense and challenging music of Crimson’s long and illustrious career. Perhaps it’s a good thing that hit single eluded them in the 80s, as such a success would have surely sidetracked Fripp & Co. from their life’s mission to continually craft ever more strange and complex music.