01	Formentera Lady						10:18
	02	Sailor's Tale						07:29
	03	The Letters						04:29
	04	Ladies Of The Road						05:34
	05	Prelude: Song Of The Gulls						04:14
	06	Islands						11:51

Robert Fripp: guitar, mellotron, Peter's Pedal Harmonium and sundry implements.
Mel Collins: Flute, bass flute, saxes and vocals.
Boz: Bass guitar, lead vocals and choreography.
Ian Wallace: Drums, percussion and vocals.
Peter Sinfield: words, sounds and visions.

Featured Players
--------------------------
Keith Trippet: Piano
Paulina Lucas: Soprano.
Robin Miller: Oboe
Mark Charig: Cornet
Harry Miller: String Bass.


Bob Eichler:
This is the only King crimson album that I've never upgraded from cassette to CD. The reason for that is probably because the only song that I really like from this tape is "Sailor's Tale", and I already have it on CD in the Frame By Frame boxed set.
When I think of this album, the words that usually come to mind are pastoral, orchestral, and...to be honest, kind of dull. But listening for this review I realized that only three songs really fit that description, "Formentera Lady", "Song of the Gulls" and the title track. "Sailor's Tale" is a heavy, rippin' instrumental that makes a nice transition between the early Crimson sound and the mid-70s band to come. "The Letters" sounds like it could have been on one of the early albums, but unfortunately it has some fairly cheesy lyrics about infidelity and melodramatic vocals. "Ladies of the Road" is a bluesy number, not bad musically but the groupie-abusing lyrics are so mysoginist that they make Greg Lake's "Taste of My Love" look not so terrible in comparison. Note to prog musicians: do not, under any circumstance, try to write "sex" lyrics.
The one bit of this tape that makes me consider getting the album on CD is the gradual transition from "Formentera Lady" into "Sailor's Tale". That part is really well done and unfortunately not included on Frame By Frame. But overall this is probably my least favorite Crimson album.

Heather MacKenzie:
This is a unique King Crimson release. Islands is not the exotic-aggressive prog created by the '72 to '74 version of the band, nor is it the grandiose Mellotron driven prog of the earlier material. And Islands is about as different from 80s and 90s Crimson as it could be. Instead, most of the songs participate in a single mellow mood, with a lot of focus on the stringed instruments, sax, and rhythm. The electric guitar does not seem as prominent, except on the Fripp masterpiece "Sailor's Tale".
Most of the songs have that melancholy "sailor music" feel to them. I can't explain what sailor music exactly is, you just need to hear these songs to see what I mean. The sounds conjure up images of waves and birds and gray skies. The "Sailor's Tale" is one of Crimson's classic instrumentals; listen to the atmospheric guitar fluttering and wailing, and the moody rhythms. "The Letters" is a very dark song with some emotionally subtle vocals and ominous string bass. "Formentera Lady" is also very interesting, with a bouncing repetitive beat and pretty melodies.
This is very different from the standard King Crimson, but I think most prog fans will like this anyway.

Joe McGlinchey:
I had first purchased Islands as a teenager just beginning to get into King Crimson. As I listened to it coming directly on the heels of the Larks' material at the time, I remember being grossly underwhelmed (bored, if you must know the truth) by it. For as far as Crimson album goes, you will find no other as consistently restrained. Even the album's most altogether aggressive piece, the instrumental "A Sailor's Tale," has a breezy agility to it. There is also a feel of mannered detachment running throughout the album, underscored by Boz Burrell's vocals. It's almost as if this album were meant to be more a theory than a reality. I know I've ragged on Peter Sinfield's lyrics enough in my other reviews, but c'mon... "Your husband's seed has fed my flesh"? "Like marron-glaced fishbones/Oh lady hit the road!"? Pete, put the pen down and back slowly, slowly away.
Still, overall Islands is an album with many great touches: the bursting growl of Mel Collins' sax in the middle of "The Letters," the John Lennon chorus of "Ladies of the Road," and the cadenza dialogue of bass, piano, and flute that haunt the opening of "Formentera Lady." Though I'm not surprised I shunned it as a teenager driven towards higher-octane models like "Fracture" and "Red," I am glad that I eventually came around to Islands' virtues.




Islands
Date of Release 1971

The weakest Crimson studio album from their first era is only a real disappointment in relation to the extraordinarily high quality of the group's earlier efforts. The songs are somewhat uneven and draw from three years of inspiration. "The Letter" is an adaptation of "Drop In," a group composition that was featured in the early set of the original Crimson lineup from 1969, while "Song of the Gulls" goes back to the pre-King Crimson trio of Giles, Giles & Fripp for its source ("Suite No. 1"). There are also a few surprises, such as the Beatles-like harmonies on the raunchy "Ladies of the Road" and the extraordinary interweaving of electric guitar and Mellotron by Robert Fripp on "A Sailor's Tale, which is one of the highlights of the early- to mid-period group's output. Some of the music overstays its welcome - several of the six tracks are extended too far, out of the need to fill up an LP - but the virtuosity of the band picks up most of the slack on the composition side: Collins' saxes and Wallace's drums keep things much more than interesting in tandem with Fripp's guitar and Mellotron, and guest vocalist Paulina Lucas' keening accompaniment carries parts of "Formentera Lady" that might otherwise have dragged. After an unfotunate history of mediocre pressings, Virgin Records released a 24-bit digitally remastered CD that captured the original intact in March of 2000 . - Bruce Eder




King Crimson - Islands

Member: Prog Owl

From the sounds of brilliance to the sounds of desperation in 1 album. This I dare say was one of the very few "close but no cigar" entries in the King Crimson saga.

After the rather messy dissolution of the Lizard lineup (with only Mel Collins and Fripp remaining), which didn't even make it to the stage, A hurt but yet very resolute Fripp set his sights on expanding his musical pallette, incorporating the classical and jazz strains that Lizard so bravely explored and largely succeeded at. Here, it turned out to be an experiment gone awry. Point being, Islands had a ton of potential, but that potential was sabotaged and derailed by two major villains:

1) Very over-extended ideas that went on longer than they should have

2) A very weak bordering on totally inept rhythm section, so much that even the extra musicians bought in could help overly much. In essence, with the exception of Collins and Fripp, they were in over their heads!

Add to this, Fripp was definitely under the gun to produce an album and tour in X amount of time. Days and weeks of frustrating auditions finally wearied him to the point that he would settle for anyone who would stick around long enough to adhere to a certain set of comittments. Enter one Boz Burell, who had never played a bass in his entire life, was handed a Fender P-bass and taught by Fripp from the ground up how to play. I guess in movies, it would be entertaining, but with a band as complex and creatively demanding as King Crimson, a recipe for disaster. While Ian Wallace might have been good in a setting similar to Led Zeppelin or any other heavy rock band, his plodding drumming just didn't fly here for the most part.

But in spite of that, there are some gems here.

"Sailor's Tale" actually turns out to be one of KC's best instrumental pieces, conveying the violence and uncertainty of the sea to its travelers, lots of spooky mellotron here to feast on, and a very unique type of Fripp guitar solo, instead of flurries of notes, he does what amounts to a "shards of metal" rhythm guitar solo spot, building to a dramatic frenzy for the mellotron to roar back in, and then the furious strumming at the end, somehow indicating the sailor got to shore with his very life and not much else.

"Islands" comes close here to being a masterpiece, if only it was shortened a bit, and with better vocals. What does make this piece oddly endearing though is for one, a beautiful cornet section by veteran jazzer Marc Charig over a mournful mellotron bed, and another just simply the way it builds from a spare piano/bass flute beginning.

The rest though is troubling. "Formentera Lady" starts off decently enough (with some help from Keith Tippett on piano and the late string bassist Harry Miller), but then it just wafts along lazily, not picking up any momentum at all. "The Letters" was based on a song called "Drop In" from the original Crimson lineup that was in development. It seems to be uncertain of itself, vacillating between piquant balladry and melodramatic nonsense and a pointless free-jazz section. It could've been a contender if given more thought. "Ladies of the Road" musically is a borderline Beatle-esque/Bluesy gem, but is utterly ruined by Pete Sinfield's obnoxiously sexist/mysoginistic lyrics, SHAME ON YOU!!! "Prelude-Song of the Gulls" comes off as more a textbook exercise on Classical/Romantic period string quartet writing than it does a real heartfelt musical thought (here, played by an uncredited string quartet). As much as I love Robert Fripp's musical concepts, I don't think he'll reinvent Mozart.

One last oddity comes after "Islands" ends, a long period of silence, and then a moment of the string quartet tuning up and Fripp giving some pointers. Many wonder why this was included. Your guess is as good as mine.

Thankfully, this lineup of Crimson didn't last long (only enough to fulfill contractual obligations), and it taught Fripp some valuable and painful lessons, ones that were gainfully employed with the next and best Crimson lineup.

Overall, an ambitious project that shot itself in the foot.