King Crimson — VROOOM VROOOM

"Energetic, impracticable, a nightmare of possibilities & opportunities and a logistical horror of complexity". Fripp's words about the double trio version of King Crimson display the mixed feelings this line-up evokes.

The two trio's consisted of Pat Mastelotto, Adrian Belew and Trey Gunn and Bill Bruford, Tony Levin and Robert Fripp respectively on drums, guitar and bass/Warrguitar. One can imagine a sixpiece band with no leader and all musicians being strong personalities can give a lot of trouble. The forces joined together also gave us some pretty good music too, once they compromised on it. It only lasted an EP, an album and a few tours and I consider myself lucky I saw this line-up perform a perfect show in 1995.

That year the first liveregistration 'B'BOOM' was released. It contained fairly rough mixingdesk recordings of the first shows played by the double trio. 'VROOOM VROOOM' supposedly is the definitive liverecording of the band with a little more experience before they fractalised into the ProjeKcts. It was recorded on several nights in Mexico City and New York. The emphasis is a little more on THRAK album than on 'B'BOOM' for the obvious reason that THRAK was still in the making at the time of recording 'B'BOOM'. Belew seemed to be given the opportunity to give free rein to his passion for The Beatles on that particular album. On the other hand some (instrumental) pieces were more like the 'Red' album from 1975. One part of 'VROOOM VROOOM' actually was written in that period. I think this King Crimson version sounded less modern than for instance the recent quartet that released 'The ConstruKction Of Light' in 2000. However one can argue if any King Crimson version was bound by the spirit of the times. I think their music has always been above it, King Crimson is one of the few bands to not get stuck in its own style during the 30 years of existence, reinventing themselves with each reincarnation. Of course long breaks and big changes of line-up helped preventing this.

But back to the subject: 'VROOOM VROOOM' is a high-quality liverecording of a unique group of musicians. The double-CD documents this King Crimson era very well (just a little better than 'B'BOOM') and no KC enthusiast should miss it. It can also serve as a nice introduction for newcomers, it represents the sound of KC from the early eighties until now.