Enlighten me about KC´s "Moonchild"

awaken77 wrote:  'musique concrete' is one of ingredients of prog  , almost mandatory (but i'd like if such numbers was kept shortest) I usually skip 'ambient noise' tracks, they are out of my interest (same about "Waiting room" in Genesis repertoire)

Interesting your mention of "Wainting room", cause although it is also a "concrete improvisation jam" there is on it a progression element very fascinating, wich make perfect sence in the concept of the album. I got to say thats almost the inverse of Moonchild, in the instrumental section you can feel that there is no intent to "progress", you could say its a "languid" piece of music.

lazland wrote: harmonium.ro wrote: There's no meaning to it, just like an abstract painting in an exhibition doesn't need to have a certain meaning to justify it being abstract. What a nice post, and absolutely spot on

Yeah, but you know how contemporary art is: the author can give it no meaning, but the observer can. Its dynammic, can you understand? i mean, as in the Theory of Relativity, the observer changes the nature of the phenomenon.

irrelevant wrote: desistindo wrote: lazland wrote: harmonium.ro wrote: There's no meaning to it, just like an abstract painting in an exhibition doesn't need to have a certain meaning to justify it being abstract. What a nice post, and absolutely spot on Yeah, but you know how contemporary art is: the author can give it no meaning, but the observer can. Its dynammic, can you understand? i mean, as in the Theory of Relativity, the observer changes the nature of the phenomenon. No meaning is a bit harsh though, even things with no immediate apparent meaning can give you certain feelings. Sometimes it's the mystery in the first place, that is the meaning.

Additionally, it is the observer/audience who don't find contemporary art straightforward to interpret...the artist always has something very specific in mind irrespective of how clearly or not the audience can perceive it. 

Anyway, similar thoughts as harmonium_ro on this piece -  unless you can keep pace with the Stockhausens and Schoenbergs, chances are you won't find this easy to analyse, but you could simply focus on the sounds and follow the picture they paint instead.  It is a highly evocative piece and the return to 'normal service' arguably sounds all the more magical for the so called random sh*t in the middle. A trick that Pink Floyd too exploited on Echoes, by the way, except the 11:00 to 15:00 section sounds more like psychedelic noodle and not so hard to crack as the section in question in Moonchild. 

desistindo wrote: Ok, i have to say that i am a fan of almost everything King Crimson did in 70´s. But there is one piece of them that i ve never understood: In "Moonchild" we have that beautiful and melodic part at the beginning and then 5 of 7 minutes (i dont know for sure) of instrumental improvisation, with minimal arrangements and crafts. So, whats the purpose of that improvisation part in your opinion for the music? I ask you in the hope that i didnt "get it" because there is some inner musical explanation, since i am lay in music theory...

 

moshkito wrote: harmonium.ro wrote: There's no meaning to it, just like an abstract painting in an exhibition doesn't need to have a certain meaning to justify it being abstract.   In general that is very true, and widely used in many arts, including film. But this album is hardly the "Pollock" of music in London! ... none of the London music was Pollock or Miro! ... more like Guernica! ... think about it! But it does show/describe, the different feelings and colors and contrasts, that a Pollock might show you. And the Beat Generation is hardly ... about "nothing" and neither is its music.   However, if you check the differences between the free forms and "abstractness" in film, music and many other disciplines, you will find that the English version is much more "mental" than many others ... in fact, you will find the best jazz/rock experimentalists are NOT in there, but in France, Germany, and other places, and even in America, where the jazz and then rock scenes were much more adventurous and came to influence everything else before the end of the 60's.   English material, and I have written about this, has a lot of "theater" in it (are you surprised with 2 of the biggest and best in the world in London?) , however, and the "visual-ness" of the content and structure of that "story" is usually well defined. That's not to say that there aren't any experimentalists that worked with these things, and some of the processes used in the theater circles are actually quite evident in the work of King Crimson (ie. Brook, Gurdgieff, Hall) and sometimes taken to the extreme.   Everyone likes to say that the guitar explosions in 20th Century Schizoid Man is this and that, but I still feel that we're failing to compare the "attitude" and playing to a few things out there at that time ... the senseless war, the IRA thing, the student activism, the authorities abusing people left and right and of course, the LOUD'ness for which the song is also making a large statement on. Even more is the fact that the television took hold big time in the late 60's and you are seeing "war" in its full vigor and ugliness right on your screen, with many images that were disturbing and not fun to watch. The effect of that guitar scream and "senseless" playing, is what this is about ... and the lyrics specify that very clearly.   To finish it off, nothing is clearer than "Epitath" the true anthem of that time. Because in any war, you will wake up missing someone. And you will be crying. Unffortunately, we say that this is "progressive", when in fact ... it's the truth!  (... and how else do you want me to tell you that?)

I'm afraid I just can't bring myself to like the long extention of Moonchild... the first minutes, with vocals and melody, I do like very much, but the rest is just too much. I have an edited version of it in my IPOD and it's the one I listen to the most. Whenever I put on the album, I won't skip it, because I want to hear the whole album, and it would sound incomplete without it, but for just listening to the song, it's too much. On the other hand, I would think this song would have offered some very interesting possibilites as a live song, specially considering how much King Crimson likes to improvise, I gues they could just have done the first minutes as they appear on the album, and then start improvising as long as they wanted, and some very nice things may have come out of that... very probably better things than what was included on the album.

I just skip Moonchild after the first 4 minutes and 40 seconds when the guitar part ends.

You know I've always considered the middle meandering integral to the song. That some people feel compelled to remove it is rather sad.  You will never be enlightened.  It will be forever eluding you.


Edited by Slartibartfast - October 29 2011 at 10:07

^ but proggers only listen to full albums, right? ;)

thellama73 wrote: AtomicCrimsonRush wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1m1l00eaDg There! Enjoy! How does Giles get his drums to sound like that.? It sounds like there's an extreme low pass filter on them or something.

Try placing a bath towel over your tom toms and play some quick rolls with dynamics.