Discipline (King Crimson album)
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| Discipline | |||||
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| Studio album by King Crimson | |||||
| Released | September 1981 | ||||
| Recorded | 1981 | ||||
| Genre | Progressive rock | ||||
| Length | 42:03 | ||||
| Label | Warner Bros. | ||||
| Producer | King Crimson and Rhett Davies | ||||
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| King Crimson chronology | |||||
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Discipline is an album by the band King Crimson, released in 1981. This album was King Crimson's first album following a seven-year hiatus. Only founder Robert Fripp and later addition Bill Bruford remained from previous incarnations. Fripp brought in Frank Zappa and David Bowie alumnus Adrian Belew (guitar, vocals) and Peter Gabriel alumnus Tony Levin (bass, Chapman Stick) to round out a quartet. The album resulted in a more updated 1980s new wave pre-techno sound mixed with the previous dark and heavy sounds of the 1970s.
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[edit] Song notes
"Matte Kudasai" (Japanese: 待って下さい) means "please wait". The original release of Discipline featured only one version of "Matte Kudasai", with a guitar part by Robert Fripp that was removed from the track on a subsequent release of the album. The latest versions of the album to be released contains both versions of the song - track 3, "Matte Kudasai", without Robert Fripp's original guitar part; and track 8, "Matte Kudasai (alternative version)", with the guitar part included. The alternative version seems largely instrumental, as the vocals are buried beneath Fripp's guitar. A short piece of Fripp addressing the band in the studio - commenting "I've never heard anything like that in my life" to the sound of Levin's Chapman stick - closes the track. The disc, when looped in its entirety, seems to loop perfectly, with the static from the tape looking into the opening of "Elephant Talk."
The lyrics of "Indiscipline" were based on a letter written to Adrian Belew by his then wife Margaret. The letter concerned a sculpture that she had made.
"Thela Hun Ginjeet" is an anagram of "heat in the jungle". When it was first performed live, some of its lyrics were based on an illicit recording made by Robert Fripp of his neighbours having a vicious argument when he was living in New York. (This recording is featured on the track "NY3", on Fripp's solo album Exposure.) While "Thela Hun Ginjeet" track was being recorded for the Discipline album, Adrian Belew, walking around Notting Hill Gate in London with a tape recorder looking for inspiration, was harassed first by a gang and then by the police. On returning to the studio, he gave a distraught account to his bandmates of what had just happened to him. This account was recorded by Fripp without Belew's knowledge as well, and is featured on the Discipline version of the track, in place of those earlier lyrics that were based on Fripp's New York recording.
"The Sheltering Sky" is named after and partially inspired by the 1949 novel of the same name by Paul Bowles. Bowles is often associated with the Beat generation, which would be an inspiration for King Crimson's subsequent studio album Beat. That album's instrumental track "Sartori in Tangier" is also inspired at least in part by Bowles.
Live versions of "Elephant Talk," "Indiscipline," and "Thela Hun Ginjeet" included partial vocal improvization during spoken-word parts. One such example can be found in the August 13, 1982 performance, which, as of February 19, 2007, was still available for free download in both MP3 and FLAC formats from DGM. (sample (from Indiscipline))
The most recent release of the album features a redesigned Celtic knot [1].
[edit] Track listing
All songs written by Adrian Belew, Bill Bruford, Robert Fripp and Tony Levin.
[edit] Side one
- "Elephant Talk" – 4:43
- "Frame by Frame" – 5:09
- "Matte Kudasai" – 3:47
- "Indiscipline" – 4:33
[edit] Side two
- "Thela Hun Ginjeet" – 6:26
- "The Sheltering Sky" – 8:22
- "Discipline" – 5:13
[edit] Bonus track
- "Matte Kudasai" (alternative version) – 3:50
[edit] Personnel
- Robert Fripp – guitar, devices
- Adrian Belew – guitar, vocals
- Tony Levin – bass guitar, Chapman stick, vocals
- Bill Bruford – drums
[edit] Charts
Album
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1981 | Billboard Pop Albums | 45 |
