andrewgoulding.com - Discipline

Discipline

O.K. I'm going out on a limb straight away, no dinner, no foreplay, wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am...Discipline is a great...no, I mean a g-r-e-a-t album!

King Crimson: Discipline

King Crimson: Discipline

You may never hum one of the tunes, you may never relate to the weird college-boy lyrics by new-boy Adrian Belew...but if you're at all interested in what great musicians sound like playing angular no-nonsense white-funk then go no further, Discipline is sublime!

The album starts with Crimson's other new boy, super-session bass player (including John Lennon's Double Fantasy) Tony Levin starting on stick (the guitar/bass hybrid instrument), the two guitars lock into synch...and there's some kind of funk happening with drummer extraordinaire Bruford keeping the beat simple.

Then, Bam! A controlled, tight, taut mayhem descends and steadily builds for the next five minutes or so as Belew flashily vocalises his Scrabble skills while Fripp weaves in an out with intricate filigree fretwork...with Belew accentuating the rare pauses with rude blasts of his guitar during Elephant Talk. If the Youtube Gods have allowed the video to remain, you'll see that this brand new version of King Crimson having a ball!

Frame by Frame: next track...

"Frame by Frame
Death by drowning
In your own
Analysis..."

Frame By Frame

What the?: 1

The syncopated guitars enmesh once more, Belew's David Byrne-like voice yelping strange Beat lyrics...no, it's not really like Byrne, there's a yearning, human edge that becomes more and more fragile and understandable, especially on the monologue tracks...but more of that later.

If Frame By Frame is lyrically impenetrable, then Matte Kudasai, apparently Japanese for "one moment, please"...is more Beat poet madness...but Belew's aching, empathic delivery, makes you feel that even if you can't make literal sense, you intuit what the words mean...

"...When, when was the night so l-o-n-g?
Long, like the notes I'm sending
She waits in the air
Matte Kudasai
She sleeps in a chair
In her sad
America..."

Matte Kudasai

Calmed down?

Bam! Bass mumbles grumpily, Bruford, as if by whim, suddenly lets fly with a manic, shock frill. A moment later, as if schoolyard thugs, the other Crimsonites join in, kicking, flailing pummeling you into submission, feedback guitars squealing, terrifying you...but why?

Bam! The band suddenly cuts back to almost nothing, mostly just strange minor percussive frills and Belew, speaking frankly but freakishly, lets you in on his psychotic Indiscipline secret:

What the?: 2

"...I do remember one thing. It took hours and hours and by the time I was done with it, I was so involved I didn't know what to think. I carried it around with me for days and days, playing little games, like not looking at it for a whole day...and then...looking at it...to see if I still liked it. I did..."

Indiscipline

Bam! The band revs back up to 200 m.p.h. in 3 seconds again, once more, fifth-gearing through that smoke-cloud of tension and chaos.

King Crimson Discipline T-shirt

Indiscipline still freaks me out...in a good way with it's paranoid, onanistic secret never revealed...

"...The more I look at it, the more I like it. I do think it's good...the fact is, no matter how closely I study it, no matter how I take it apart, no matter how I break it down, it remains consistent. I wish you were here to see it..."

Indiscipline

Bam! Rev up to 200 m.p.h. again!

Uh-oh. Next track, Thela Hun Gingeet Manic funking guitars, swirling through white-hot world music while massed Belews & Levins chanting:

"...Thela Hun Gingeet
Thela Hun
Gingeet
Thela Hun Gingeet
Thela Hun
Gingeet..."

Thela Hun Gingeet

Incidentally, Fripp wasn't keen on the propose title, In The Jungle Heat, so the anagram, Thela Hun Ginjeet was perversely accepted, instead.

What the?: 3

Then Belew breathlessly narrates a fractured, scared, real-life story about almost being killed by muggers in the streets of New York. Here's the full story at Adrian Belew's Elephant Blog. Meanwhile the world music broth bubbles away impressively underneath...and treated Fripp guitars solo after the er... laughing punchline is delivered.

Suddenly we're in a North African bazaar for The Sheltering Sky with Islamic guitars building over Bruford's gentle, subtle percussion and Levin's sensitive bass. Meditative, delightful...and for me, very very moving.

The album ends with the title track, another instrumental. Fripp sets up the groove and then the band seems to hit a weird time signature that still seems melodic. Discipline sounds like it's music for insects... as if King Crimson created a symphony for intricate hive construction with planned interludes for worship and/or servicing of the Queen. Yow! It's sexy and meticulous. I love it!

King Crimson: Discipline

"...Perfect. What music should sound like...." Amazon.com reviewer Skeebler Q. McWaffleface

"...it's one of the best records of the 80's that I'll bet not many people have ever heard!..." Amazon.com reviewer K. Lewis "thrasher"

"...I don't know if this is classified as progressive rock but whatever it is, I like it a lot! One to crank up! Sometimes I take it out and play little games like looking at it and then not looking at it, just to see if I still like it. I DO!..." Amazon.com reviewer Dan Wemmer

"...Buy this now. If you've yet to hear this, you have a lifetime of shivers up and down your spine to catch up on. A masterpiece that no one can claim to have topped..." Amazon.com reviewer Zachary A. Hanson "jazzpunk"

Was Discipline really really released in 1981? It sounds like today to me. This music is timeless, liquid, muscular controlled chaos. You must have...Discipline.

The King Crimson archives have also released a 2-concert LIVE album from around that time with the first concert being from before recording Discipline, when they were actually to be called Discipline and the second concert comes from the tour for Beat, their next album.

King Crimson: The Collectable King Crimson

"...On the first CD we have Discipline performing together as a group, for the very first time, in the claustraphobic Moles Club, in Bath, England in 1981. The performance was captured off an original cassette recording of the show and so the sound quality is very poor. However, we catch the energy and prescence of the crowd, feeling almost as if we were there, elbowing for space, trying to catch a glimpse of what new thing Robert Fripp has come up with. The band performs the new material with panache but does seem to stumble some..." Amazon.com reviewer Joseph C Helton

"...The band performs material that would form the basis for their first album and recorded much of it getting out to hone their chops, LIVE. The performance sounds fair...drawn from a restored audio cassette, so (it) is presented in mono with limited fidelity (but) it still is worthwhile for some of the stunning, loose performances..." Amazon.com reviewer Wayne Klein

Extras:

Bill Bruford at a drum clinic playing Indiscipine

An intro to King Crimson