THE GREAT DECEIVER: LIVE 1973 - 1974

This is a four-CD boxed set from the 73-74 live performances featuring Fripp, Bruford, Wetton, and Cross, the lineup that to many Crimheads was the quintessential iteration of the band's many faces. Dark, ominous, moody, majestic, monolithic, savage at times and gorgeously evocative at others, fans can string together their own adjectives to describe this indescribable band. The highlight of the package is the many and varied improvisations included in the set lists. The biggest disappointment for me with this set of CDs is the lack of inclusion of any tracks featuring former percussionist Jamie Muir, the crazed Scotchman who provided insanity, stage leaping, and blood capsules for the audience's consumption. Muir's legacy can be heard in Bruford's expanded repertoire of percussion goodies, stretching himself out from his former reliance on a straightforward jazz kit. I assume there were some legal strings preventing them from including Muir's performances. All four members get plenty of room for spotlights on the extensive, some say redundant, entries on the CDs in this set. There's also a highly informative booklet with lots of Fripp diary entries and photos.

The first CD, and the beginning of the 2nd, comprise the entirety of the second-to-last performance, recorded in Providence, Rhode Island, and giving us the "Providence" improv, released in a slightly brushed-up form on "Red". (The last performance would be immortalized in the '75 release "USA," re-released in an extended version in 2004? as "Casino," without the annoying studio overdubs by Eddie Jobson.) The band had already decided to fire violinist David Cross, whose increasing discomfort with his place in the band had manifested itself in his increasing role as a keyboardist desperately trying to fit in to the roar of the power trio of his bandmates, and less of a featured violin player. Cross's delicate contributions would become more and more overwhelmed by the industrial buzzsaw of the other three musicians, but in this set Cross gets plenty of room to shine on violin and viola, making the average listener with no idea of the band's personal dynamics wonder what the fuss was all about.

The second CD is filled out with highlights from a 1973 Glasgow performance, featuring the rare use of a drum machine in the improv "Tight Scrummy" and a rare performance of a 60s song other than "21st Century Schizoid Man," a rocked-up rendition of the jazzy "Cat Food." It's filled out with a long, satisfying improv from a Penn State concert flowing out of "Easy Money."

The third CD is a notoriously famous concert recording from Pittsburgh, featuring a discoomfited Fripp battling food poisoning and thereby letting the other band members take a bit more prominence. Fripp is enough of a professional not to let his parts sag, and the best indication of Fripp's increasing desire to get the hell off stage and to a bathroom comes in the encore, featuring a very short, stinging "Larks' Tongue II" that lashes the audience with less than 3 minutes of fiery guitars followed by a hasty exit to the amazement of the audience. This set features one of the few recordings of the song "Doctor Diamond," a piece never quite settled on by the band. A personal favorite, the violin-led improv "Daniel Dust," is the centerpiece of this selection. Another powerful improv from Penn State rounds out the CD.

The fourth CD is many fans' favorite. The improvs "The Golden Walnut" and "The Law of Maximum Distress," are two of the most powerful and fascinating improvisations in the set, the second one marred by a jarring cut in the middle when the engineer's tape ran out, leaving the listener wondering how the band got from its double-mellotron noodling in Part I to the tight, savage thundering of Part II. This CD's version of "Larks' Tongues I" is particularly satisfying.

Some songs are presented more than once (we get FOUR versions of "Easy Money," mostly because the song was usually used as a lead-in for an improv), which for the casual fan might come across as lazy redundancy, but for the dedicated KC listener gives a chance to hear the seemingly endless variations on a particular song that the band would explore on various nights. A casual fan won't want to spend the bucks for this set until they flesh out their collection with the three absolutely essential studio releases from 72-74 and perhaps explore the "guitar gamelan," to steal a phrase, of the later 80s, the six-man "Dinosaur" 90s, and the stripped-down post-millenium iterations of the band. But if you're a dedicated KC fan, and you have a particular fondness for the early 70s lineup, you need this set. Music to invade Mordor by.