“All I can remember was Robert Fripp giving up completely, saying, ‘There’s no hope’”: King Crimson’s torturous journey through fourth album Islands – and its 30-year fallout
By Sid Smith( Prog ) published 3 days ago
Fripp, Mel Collins, Boz Burrell and Ian Wallace only made one record together, and it hurt them all – but the short-lived touring line-up and their achievements deserve reconsideration
The year was 1970 and Robert Fripp was on the verge of quitting King Crimson. Just 12 months after their original line-up had imploded, they were facing internal rifts again on third album Lizard. But along came Islands – the only studio recording to feature the touring line-up of Fripp, Mel Collins, Boz Burrell and Ian Wallace – and the band’s trajectory was changed for good, as Prog discussed in 2021.
It’s early on the morning of January 6, 2010, and somewhere between Berkhamsted and Hemel Hempstead, Robert Fripp is looking out of his hotel window at the heavy overnight snowfall and his snowed-in car. He’s in this neck of the woods to work with Steven Wilson, who is remixing King Crimson’s Islands for the 40th anniversary series.
Fortunately, help is at hand in the shape of Jakko Jakszyk, who lives nearby. In addition to working on remixes of his old album, Fripp is also engaged on a new project with Jakszyk that will eventually be released as A Scarcity Of Miracles. Given the scarcity of snow ploughs and shovels, Jakszyk’s offer to drive Fripp to Wilson’s place is gratefully accepted.
Dropping Fripp off, he goes home to work on tracks the pair recorded with Mel Collins the previous day before the snow. Aside from a guest spot on King Crimson’s Red, it’s the first time Collins has done a full album session with Fripp since Islands in 1971.
At the appointed hour Jakszyk returns to Wilson’s house. Upon entering the car, Fripp doesn’t even say hello – but with his normally demure Dorset accent now exasperated and laden with expletives, he recites some of Peter Sinfield’s lyrics to Formentera Lady, the opening track from Islands.
‘Here O-fucking-dysseus charm-ed for dark fucking Circe fucking fell/Still her fucking perfume lingers, still her fucking spell.’ Sighing heavily, he says, “If I’ve learned one thing, it’s never let people write songs about going on their fucking holidays.” Convulsed with laughter, Jakszyk says, “Oh Robert, don’t spoil the magic.” To which, Fripp, digging deeper into his native West Country accent, smilingly replies, “Plenty magic still left there, boy!”
Alongside the humour, the moment also highlights is the fact that, decades later, the events and surrounding the making of Islands was still capable of eliciting
a deep, emotional response in Fripp – who once said that period from 1970 to the summer of 1972 was something he’d rather not go through ever again.
For a long time, the Islands-era band were very much the forgotten King Crimson: a group overshadowed by 1969’s groundbreaking debut and eclipsed by the brilliance of the magical Larks’ Tongues era that followed. This part of Crimson history was represented by an album hurriedly recorded on the hoof in between gigs and – until the 2000s – a live legacy that could only be found on the infamous Earthbound, whose dubious bootleg sonics meant that Atlantic Records declined to even release it in the country where it had been recorded.
In just two years they released three albums that were by turns accomplished, challenging, bold, innovative, quixotic, and unmistakably Crimson – despite the turbulence that was evident had you been following the pages of the music press at the time. Unable to find suitable new members, a power struggle between the two remaining founder members was playing out to poisonous effect. Musical frustration, personal animosity and professional resentment bubbled under the surface, eventually boiling over into passive-aggressive brinkmanship and mass resignation.
In theory, 1970 and 1971 should have been the years that King Crimson capitalised on the giddy rush of In The Court Of The Crimson King’s transatlantic success. With sales of the hastily constructed follow-up In The Wake Of Poseidon actually out-performing its illustrious debut, there was no shortage of promoters offering slots at festivals and tours in the provinces at home and abroad. What the band lacked was the right personnel to take out on the road.
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