“Matte Kudesai” was not a hit, and Discipline did not do for Crimson what Duke or 90125 did for Genesis or Yes. Maybe it could have if more of the record followed in this spirit, with its otherworldly tenderness and openness to singalong melody. Instead, Discipline is restless and uneasy, pushing the boundaries of what a Crimson song can be. The instrumental closers, “The Sheltering Sky” and “Discipline,” remain dazzling for their intensity: the former with its sci-fi ambience and churning Bruford rhythms, the latter by transporting the heaviness of Red to a pristine studio environment that still feels futuristic. (There is a reason why the following decade’s rock bands, from Nirvana to Tool, would cite Crimson as a crucial influence.)
But the greatest breakthrough of Discipline was a creative one. Did it live up to Fripp’s vision of a band played by its music? In a sense. His ambition was to craft records in which it was impossible to distinguish which musician played which part, what instrument conjured what sound. This was partially what drew him to gamelan: “The natural product of our particular culture is the star system,” he said in 1982. “You couldn’t conceivably have stars within gamelan.” In response to the “so-called industrial capitalist culture” Fripp saw around him, he posited this new iteration of Crimson as a kind of utopia: Everyone had a crucial role in the songwriting, everyone got paid equally, and no one member led the band. Even more than the studio records from this lineup—there would be two more, 1982’s Beat and 1984’s Three of a Perfect Pair, with slightly diminishing returns—I hear this approach in the live recordings, when this material really came alive and performing it became second nature.
It makes sense—Discipline, after all, is only a means to an end. This is perhaps why, when it came time for Belew to add a spoken-word vocal part to a mind-bendingly complicated rhythmic instrumental, his thoughts turned to a letter his wife had sent him on the road. Every artist knows the struggle of maintaining a healthy balance between your work, your ego, and your ambition. Everyone aspires to the level of confidence that quiets the fear of failure, impervious to what an audience might think. By writing a song that—even if you just want to tap your foot to it—refuses to go with the flow, shifting between moods and volumes and rhythmic patterns, the band shows us what a work in progress feels like, with no end in sight.
The defining quality of “Indiscipline” is that it never finds resolution. It creeps and lurches and lashes out; it begs for your attention and retreats just as soon as you start following its logic. To fit the words of Margaret’s letter to music, Belew removed all references that would identify the subject (“Most people think it’s about a Rubik Cube or whatever that thing is called,” he joked at the time) and added his own Byrne-esque fits of neurosis to break up the narrative: “I repeat myself when under stress,” he says, calmly, four-and-a-half times. And then there’s that line about wishing you were here to see it, which leaps from his throat like a cry for help.
On a recent tour where Belew and Levin regrouped to perform Crimson’s ’80s material under the name Beat—with Steve Vai filling in for Fripp and Tool’s Danny Carey filling in for Bruford—the clearest takeaway was how much this music belongs to Belew, despite Fripp’s intention for a leaderless collective. All this time later, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone delivering such wildly complicated material so fluidly, and with such a big smile on his face. In concert, the band extends “Indiscipline” to roughly double the length of the studio version, and the words that once existed between two married artists coming to terms with their processes become a communal experience, delivered not just by the beaming virtuoso on stage but also among an audience of thousands, who at some point in the preceding decades, heard a part of themselves in its knotted, confusing twist of emotions. Together they brace themselves for the final line, which for all the preceding tantrums and spirals, could not be misinterpreted or challenged. “I like it,” Belew shouts, and the audience applauds.
