KING CRIMSON — Projekct Two : Space Groove (review)

KING CRIMSON — Projekct Two : Space Groove album cover Album · 1998 · Jazz Related Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
snobb
"Space Groove" is the first studio album from the long-running Robert Fripp project (ProjeKct?) which established a sort of experimental music laboratory in the form of King Crimson off-springs. The first experiments started in 1997 (ProjeKct One) and live recordings of that Projekt were released later, but ProjeKct Two was the first studio release.

As in all the other ProjeKcts, ProjeKct Two was a band formed by Robert Fripp from current King Crimson members - this time besides guitarist/bassist Trey Gunn, who already played in ProjeKct One, Adrian Belew joins, replacing Bill Bruford and Tony Levin from the first Projekt.

This recording was unplanned and happened when Fripp, Gunn and Belew met in Belew's home studio to test his new V-drums. It's interesting to note that Belew was King Crimson's guitarist, but was now playing the new electronic drums for this session. All of the material from this chance get together was recorded and later released as "Space Groove".

This album's music is similar to King Crimson's sound during this same period and is quite different at the same time. All of the 17 compositions are instrumental improvs; spacey, groove oriented, angular and repetitive, but they often sound like composed pieces and contain a lot of characteristic Frippian tunes.

King Crimson's "Discipline" is often mentioned as a cornerstone album for proto math-rock and it's difficult not to agree with that statement, but in fact the first real math-rock release recorded by the genre's inventors is ProjeKct Two's "Space Groove". Fortunately, different from many of their followers' music, the songs on this album are quite warm, far from mechanical/robotic, and contain some serious spacey grooves.

For sure this music is in fact a spontaneous session and even if played by really great musicians, it still sounds that way. A lot of moments sound nice and catchy, but in whole, the music is often too repetitive, bulky and overall the album starts nowhere and goes on for eternity. This is a really interesting release for serious math-rock researchers and King Crimson maniacs, but for all others, it's better to listen to all of King Crimson albums first.
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