Peter Sinfeld's Influence on KC Instrumentals?

Andrew Keeling's diary on KNews for Tuesday, August 2 2005: …King Crimson's Islands is playing in the back room. I felt I should remove it from its home on the CD shelf and play it this morning. Sailor's Tale. RF has bad memories of this period KC. PS thinks it's the route KC should have taken and sees Islands as (quote) 'my Islands'…

This explains a lot, and raises questions.

I'm not sure why Peter Sinfield would consider Islands to be his album, although it became clear at the time that Peter was increasingly using KC as a vehicle for his personal ambitions, rather than a joint/group undertaking. On Islands Peter expanded his brief to include cover design, rather than using an outside artist (in the US Atlantic declined to use Peter's cover, preferring the inner sleeve of the nebula cluster). At live shows, VCS3 explosions & effects from Peter's FOH desk suggested a metaphorical climbing-onstage. EG Management, experiencing the difficulties of managing an offstage member of KC who wanted the visibility of an onstage presence, put the sound mixer of their next band onstage right from the beginning, in order to head-off the problem: Eno with Roxy Music.

The creative power that brought KC to life in 1969, which we called the "good fairy", did not originate in the young men that formed the band: it acted through & upon them. As an older player, I look back with greater experience of the workings of the creative process; and find the creative impulse that came into our lives unimaginably more generous than I could appreciate at the time, and even more mysterious.

When the creative current turns on, genuine insight can move to fantasy. This is particularly so with young people who suddenly become successful & the centre of attention; suddenly become important income-generators (for their managers & handlers rather than themselves). Whims tend to be humoured & demands (not always reasonable or measured) addressed, at least for a time, to keep the artist within the loop.

Aspiration pulls us forward, towards the aim. Ambition pushes us forward, the aim serving as the vehicle to achieve our personal ends. A prime distinguishing characteristic between aspiration & fantasy is in knowing where we are, where we are going, our talents & resources, and the particular contribution & tasks that are required of us. In a word, realism.

I don't doubt that Peter's feelings are genuine, that he honestly believes himself to be KC's Good Fairy. This would explain the bitterness, ongoing to this day. But realistically, how was Islands Peter's album? Peter didn't compose or play music; his contribution was not of the catalysing & conceptual kind that Eno brings; and Eno's "non-musicianship" was of a different order. Peter's exceptional talent & contribution lay elsewhere; as the world has justly recognised.

Which musical route did Peter want for KC? That of Formentera Lady? Ladies Of The Road? Scored music for chamber orchestra? And how could any route have been continued, even were Peter to have remained within the band? Peter's considerable talents were not musical. Peter had no musical & performing experience, compositional or executant skills. And personally, I prefer Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Fracture & Red to Formentera Lady; with due respect to all the talented characters involve