Released: 1984
Tracks: Three of a Perfect Pair; Model Man; Sleepless; Man With an Open Heart; Nuages (That Which Passes, Passes Like Clouds); Industry; Dig Me; No Warning; Larks’ Tongues in Aspic Part III; The King Crimson Barber Shop; Industrial Zone A; Industrial Zone B; Sleepless (Tony Levin Mix); Sleepless (Bob Clearmountain Mix); Sleepless (Dance Mix – F. Kevorkian)
Best track: Sleepless
Track to skip: the last half of Larks’ III
First and only time in Crimson history, the same band stays around for 3 studio albums. I love how these three albums (Discipline, Beat and TOAPP) form a wonderful trio. There’s the musical progression and there’s also the cover art for all three albums. I love that all three albums by these ‘prog rock’ guys are simple primary colors; Red, Blue and Yellow. All 3 have good artwork, but I might like TOAPP the best, esp. the bit on the back: yellow background, blue rhythm/lead symbol and the red arch tying it all together. And of course, that’s where the album title fits in. Three of a Perfect Pair (in my view) is the third album of this ‘perfect pair’ of rhythm/lead pairs. Bruford/Levin are rhythm (more or less), while Fripp/Belew are lead (again, more or less). Or, it could be divided into English/American. There are many ways to interpret this stuff.
On Beat I mentioned how it was a bit disjoined with the far-out stuff and the pop stuff. Well, on this album they decided to do an even split and have side one (Left Side) be the poppier material, while side two (Right Side) be the far-out, noisy stuff. And then for the 2001 reissue we get “The Other Side”: a barber shop quartet, unreleased tracks and remixes of the single Sleepless. I love how this extra material adds almost 30 minutes to this album. That’s what I call Bonus Tracks. Side one is the poppier side, although instead of usual ‘pop’ music like on Heartbeat, these pop songs are Crimson’s version of pop. Sleepless was the single off this album and by far the most danceable track KC ever recorded. It’s a great track with a fantastic bassline by Tony Levin. Besides the obvious construction of the pop/weird sides (both being part of this band, as it always has been in a way), I *love* how both sides feature something that stylistically should be on the other side. Nuages (French for “clouds”) is a weird instrumental and Dig Me (one of the weirder songs in the Crimson catalog) features a chorus that is probably the most pop thing they’ve ever written. The juxtaposition is wonderful.
The “Right Side” is the weirder stuff, and mostly instrumental. Dig Me is the only vocal on side 2 with some typically original Belew lyrics. Both Industry and No Warning aren’t that exciting, but I don’t usually skip them since they work with the flow of the album. What I do skip is the 2nd half of Larks’ III. I love the first part, it’s the perfect continuation of the Larks’ theme that was started back in ’72. For some reason, they do a few minutes of the cool stuff and then just go into this very plodding noisy thing. There are a couple of individual interesting bits, but plodding quarter notes on the bass (even if it is Levin) bore me to death. The album proper ends on a fadeout, which to me always sounds like they have run out of ideas when that happens. As for the bonus tracks, I LOVE the KC Barber Shop. It’s not all four of them actually singing, in reality it’s Tony Levin singing all four parts by himself. Very humorous, and a side of King Crimson we never see. Industrial Zones A & B are just noisy instrumental outtakes. They sound like two more versions of No Warning, they’re decent, but not much is there. The three remixes of Sleepless are pretty interesting. I like Tony Levin’s version the best. Heh, I always trust a bassist when dealing with concepts of rhythm.
This is a much better album than Beat, but definitely not as great as Discipline. It rounds out this version of King Crimson perfectly with an equal sampling of 2 sides of the band’s mindset. It’s too bad they couldn’t make it past the tour and we’d have to wait 10 years before another Crimson album. TOAPP is a good album and the bonus tracks make it a lot more interesting, especially for hard-core fans.
Rating: 93
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