![]() Robert Fripp once talked about an album being a love-letter and a concert a hot date. As with the other recordings by the mid 1970s line-up, the intervening years have seen the album’s reputation increase among fans & musicians alike, while the then unusual approach to using live performances as core elements of subsequent studio recordings has also become increasingly commonplace. Crimson’s audience responded to the challenge, making it a much loved album by the band. Starless And Bible Black demanded the attention and concentration of the listener. The rest of the tracks were taken from concert recordings from the UK and Europe with the audience carefully edited out. The Night Watch contained a live introduction, while the instrumental backing to The Mincer was excised from an in-concert improvisation with vocals overdubbed later. Only two tracks on the record ( The Great Deceiver and Lament) were fully recorded in the studio. Often the two are so finely dovetailed together it’s difficult to tell them apart. Though the public weren’t aware of it when it was originally released in March 1974, Starless And Bible Black was in essence largely a live album, an experimental hybrid of in-concert material (much of it improvised) and studio recordings. Yet even a cursory listen reveals this to be a powerful record, brimming with confidence borne out of the band’s increasing mastery of the concert platform. ![]() ![]() ![]() ***** Coming as it does between the startling re-invention of Larks’ Tongues In Aspic and the far-reaching repercussions of Red, when it comes to assessments of the King Crimson canon, Starless In Bible Black has often been overlooked. ![]()
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