Stick Men take their name from the Chapman Stick, the bass-guitar fusion instrument Tony Levin introduced during the ’80s incarnation of King Crimson. For Prog Noir, Levin collaborates with a Crimson colleague, drummer Pat Mastelotto, who leans heavily on his kit while keeping pace with the fluid guitar lines of guitarist Markus Reuter, another acolyte of King Crimson’s visionary, Robert Fripp. Prog Noir would not sound out of place heard next to any number of post-1980 Fripp-Crimson LPs with its oddly angled tuneful melodies and slightly askew yet utterly coherent rhythms.
