The Brondesbury Tapes [Original recording remastered]

So far, this is my 2nd favorite CD of 2006 and I am kicking myself for waiting so long to get it. EVERY fan of the early incarnations of King Crimson simply must partake of this remarkable, endearing and oh so anti-commercial little collection of ditties which have ruled my iPod now for 2 weeks straight: It is absolutely mesmerizing stuff.

Like any good Crimson/Fripp worshipper worth their salt I too sought out "The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp" in 1990 or so when the original Decca import CDs of the trio's first & only album finally reached our specialty stores here, and it quickly became a sort of guilty pleasure favorite; one of the great overlooked comedy albums ever to come out of Britain. But if anything "The Brondesbury Tapes" is an upgrade improvement upon the original rather than the other way around -- Instead of a tightly produced studio based jazz/rock hybrid pop album broken up by odd commentaries on the nature of man, this release is just the bare bones recordings made by the trio in their apartment along with future Crimson renaissance man Ian MacDonald, Fairport Convention vocalist Judy Dyble, and a remarkable Revox tape machine that deservedly gets a special set of notes all on it's own. That thing should be in a museum somewhere, and the technician who maintained it for them deserves a monument built in his name.

To cut right to the chase, yes this is where the Robert Fripp legacy began, represents a sort of working sketch of the idea that became King Crimson in 1969 after nearly a decade of communal futility in trying to have a "go" at making a commercially successful band, and is a demonstration of a cup literally overflowing with talent that simply had nowhere to go. Peter Giles' liner notes are at times hilarious, heartbreaking, insightful and utterly inspiring -- anybody who dreams of making their own "album" right in their bedroom or loft should take note of how this collection of music was created even more than evaluating the music on it's own. I won't spoil the fun for anybody, but even after being familiar with the bulk of material presented I am awe struck at the tenacity of the trio/quartet/quintet to simply make the recordings at all, usually in the face of universal adversity and complete public disinterest. They never got one (1) single live gig as a band, though as these recordings reveal that may not have been the worst thing that ever happened as far as potential audiences were concerned, because the music was totally at odds with what was "hip" or cool in 1968. They couldn't have cared less, and that is maybe what signified them as "artists" rather than mere pop musicians.

The collection starts out with a suprisingly creepy little track called "Hypocrite" which is the oldest surviving commercial recording to feature Mr. Fripp on guitar. And while it may not be sonically rich the track still packs a bit of a whallop once you realize how the recording was made, and the acidic bitterness of the song's lyric is hard to not snicker at with sadistic glee. The reason I sought out the collection was deciding that I had to hear the long lost Judy Dyble voiced version of "I Talk To The Wind", previously only available on a now deleted 2 record Crimson compilation from 1977, and lovingly re-mastered to make it sound like an actual song. You also get two very different mixes of "Cheerful Insanity" era favorites "Newly-Weds", "Digging My Lawn", a very different version of Fripp's "Erudite Eyes", a 2nd MacDonald/Giles vocalized "I Talk To The Wind" (which is nowhere near as nice as Judy's), as well as the bonus tracks released on the remastered "Cheerful Insanity" album, "Under The Sky" (2 versions), "She Is Loaded" and 2 versions of the puzzling "(Why Don't You Just) Drop In", a staple of the early live Crimson shows which Fripp stubbornly continued to re-work until the 1971 "Islands" album, when it became one of my least favorite King Crimson tracks, "The Letters". The two versions presented here (and the live takes on the "Epitaph" collections) make one wonder why Fripp didn't just leave well enough alone. It was a superior pop take on Fripp's bemusement with the counterculture era, something which he worked to shape but had little or no contact with, other than observers. They were too busy rehearsing to be cool.

But for me at least the standout tracks on this collection are easily "Wonderland", an amazing Fripp scribed jazz/rock composition featuring a rare early pre-Belew instance of Fripp allowing someone else to play lead guitar (and a mind-boggling doo-wop vocalized section that is absurdly perfect -- I never knew Robert Fripp had it in him to make a song that is actually "fun" to listen to), a bizarre bit of lounge-jazz pop called "Make It Today" (2 versions) which would have made a perfect pop single if anyone had been smart enough to release it, the priceless Judy Dyble version of "I Talk To The Wind" with it's bummer clarinet notes and tinny lead guitar riffs, and of course the aforementioned "Drop In" cuts. Some of the filler material is a bit puzzling (especially "Passages of Time" with Ms. Dyble warbling like a police siren and is as close to memorably awful as anything Fripp ever did this side of "Lady of the Dancing Water") but it will all stick with you after the CD player is switched off , something you can't really even say about all of the Crimson albums, and you can hear his Guitar Craft sound in it's embryonic pre-infancy twenty years before he came up with a name for it. In other words you will want to listen to this again rather than hide it in the closet with "Vroom". I sort of lost patience with Fripp after "Thrak" and will always prefer the woodwind era "Fripp with an Afro" versions when he was perhaps not yet seen as the infallible art rock demigod history has painted him to be.

Maybe that's my tagline: If you have ever wondered what it would be like to hear Bob Fripp play an at times sub-standard guitar without his traditional array of pedal effects and whirlygigs back when he aspired to be a pop musician, this is your golden opportunity. The music may not appeal to every die hard Crimson fanatic but to paraphrase the late Dr. Carl Sagan, "The universe is not always required to be in perfect harmony with mere human ambitions." Sometimes what you get is what you get: This band never broke into the scene they pursued and the bitterness of their frustration fueled the first King Crimson era with a sort of resigned desparation to either succeed or take the universe down the toilet with them trying.

Fortunately for the rest of us they made it big, but yeah, this is where it all began, and you won't miss "The Saga of Rodney Toady" at all.

These songs,recorded on a four track reel to reel as demo tapes, reflect the journey from the cheerful insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp and onwards to the court of the crimson king.The disc begins with the trio (drums,bass and guitar respectively) then adds Ian Macdonald ( sax, flute,etc) and Judy Dyble ( vocals) for a few tunes before Dyble moves on and plans are laid for Greg Lake to replace Peter Giles and for King Crimson to begin.
It would be interesting to have seen how this band would have been judged had it not grown up to become King Crimson.Perhaps Peter Giles would be hailed as one of Englands lost masters of that whimsical,literate sort of music that 1967 and 1968 produced in abundance.His songs here are by far the most assured and convincing of the several writers and frankly have the best tunes.
Overall I found this a good collection whether you are looking to find out where Crimson emerged from or just looking for some good music.
Having said all that I think my pick of the tracks would be the first version of "drop in" which features some wonderful harmonies and what would have to be one of the strangest guitar solos that Robert Fripp has ever played.

I cannot believe these recording were made on a 2-track Revox machine back in 1968! The sound is almost that of a studio recording, and the performances are top notch all the way through.

About half of this material was issued by Tenth Planet as an LP called Metaphormosis in 1999, but this is the first time we get all the recordings made by the Giles brothers and Robert Fripp. Also featured on some of these songs are Judy Dyble on vocals and Ian McDonald on various wind instruments and piano.

The music is a far cry from the stuff they did about a year later as King Crimson, and should sit nicely alongside your other CD's with obscure UK sixties pop/rock.

The music is a blend of jazzy chords, great pop with a bit of folk music thrown in and lots of finely crafted and really beautiful harmony vocals. Two of my favourites are Hypocrite (the opener and the most experimental/psychedelic song on the album) and She Is Loaded; a great pop song with some extremely catchy riffs and funny, twisted lyrics.

The sleeve notes are written by Peter Giles himself and offers a thorough look at the history of the members and a background of the recordings, including a detailed look at the actual recording and the equipment used. The booklet is also filled with lots of rare pictures and newspaper clippings.

Still, I can't imagine how this was done on a 2-track Revox in 1968!

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