THE CHEERFUL INSANITY OF GILES, GILES & FRIPP

Do not go into this album with the idea that this is King Crimson. Despite Mr. Fripp and the Giles brothers, this bears very little resemblance to the music of the Crimson King. The first clue, in all of the photos on this album, Fripp is (gasp!) smiling.

A friend of mine once said that the one common aspect of all of the early music from the great proggers of the seventies is silliness. This is true of The Nice, early Pink Floyd, and even band's like Tomorrow (Steve Howe's pre-Yes group). But few were as silly as Giles, Giles & Fripp.

The songs are all short, mostly under three minutes, and are not bad, for sixties psychedelia. Fripp plays mostly jazzy sounding riffs, only breaking out on the classical sounding Suite No. 1. The songs are divided into two groups, each strung together by some Monty Python- esque spoken word sections (remember the Gumby sketches?).

All-in-all, this is not an amazing album, but certainly a welcome part of my collection.