Mel Collins: Saxes & flute, Robert Fripp: Guitar & keyboards,
Gavin Harrison: Drums, Jakko Jakszyk: Guitar & voice, Tony Levin:
Basses & stick, Pat Mastelotto: Drums, Bill Rieflin: Drums &
keyboards.
3 x CD + 1 x Blu Ray: Three CDs featuring a representative
example of every song/piece performed by King Crimson on its 2015
tours of the UK, Canada & Japan
* CDs presented as individually themed “virtual studio albums”
with no audible audience & mixed for audio presentation
* One Blu-Ray featuring a complete set-list drawn from
Japanese concert performances – almost 3 hours of music - in
high-resolution stereo & 5.1 surround audio complete with
“picture off” mode allowing the music to be heard independently
in pristine, lossless audio. (24/48khz as per original
s)
* Four disc set presented in two mini-vinyl style gatefold
packs with 20 pages booklet in an outer slipcase
“This is King Crimson… re-imagined” – Robert Fripp, June
2016
It has been stated many times that King Crimson is not so much a
band as it is “a way of doing things”. Less frequently stated but
equally true, is the fact that the band inevitably seeks
different ways of doing things. The current incarnation of the
band, 2014 – the present day, has already released two taster
sets in the form of 2015’s Live at the Orpheum mini-album and the
vinyl picture disc EP that accompanied the 2015 tours of Canada
and Japan, while the full raw concert performance from a single
night in Toronto in 2015 was presented as a 2CD set earlier this
year to great accl. Now, with the release of Radical Action
comes the most fully realised audio and visual statement from
this band to date, running to three themed CDs and a Blu-Ray disc
offering the filmed content along with an audio only option in
lossless high resolution stereo and surround sound.
The set includes at least one performance of every song/piece of
music played by King Crimson in 2015, some pieces originally
composed in 1969 the year of the band’s inception, others
composed/initially performed at a variety of points since, some
new to the tour, all arranged for this specific line-up. Indeed
it is characteristic of this King Crimson – in direct contrast to
all other post 1970s line-ups - to feature a broad range of
material from the 1969 - 1974 era, performed in such a manner as
to maintain much of what made the music so arresting when first
issued, while arranged for fresh interpretation by the seven
piece line-up of today. As Fripp put it (when asked what the
title of the album meant to him): “What I like about this band
is, that what it is actually doing is not what it appears to be
doing...”. The idea of King Crimson re-imagined, that the music
as presented is new, irrespective of when originally composed, is
the key element in this band’s makeup.
The set will be released to coincide with King Crimson’s most
extensive European tour since 1974, with performances slated to
include, for the first time ever, material from all seven of King
Crimson’s 1969 – 1974 iconic studio albums.
Audio: Three themed CDs of material recorded in 2015, each
forming a separate discrete performance with audio selected from
a variety of shows and fully mixed from multi-track tapes by
Chris Porter, Robert Fripp and David Singleton. As no audience is
audible between tracks, this allows for a “virtual studio album”
effect. (The current King Crimson line-up was deliberately
conceived as a performing band rather than as a band concerned
with making full studio s).
Video: Among the problems most associated with filming live
performance, perhaps the key problems are those of the
film-makers’ cameras intruding on the audience’s capacity to
enjoy the show without interruption and the intrusion of the
cameras on the band’s performance. In effect, both performance
and audience response must be misrepresented to approximate a
live show for later consumption. In order to record the
performances more accurately, a series of Japanese concerts was
captured via a number of discreet cameras in a “video vérité”
style – with neither band nor audience disturbed by filming – by
Trevor Wilkins who also edited and assembled the footage.
Audio/Video: Blu-Ray features the concert film in high-resolution
[24/48] stereo and 5.1 surround sound with additional ‘video off’
mode allowing for high-resolution audio only playback in stereo
and surround sound.
In essence the music can be experienced in a number of different
ways – as continuous uninterrupted audio on CD, as a viewable
concert performance in stereo or 5.1 surround, or in
high-resolution, lossless audio stereo or 5.1 surround without
pictures on the Blu-Ray.
Presentation: 2 x gatefold mini-vinyl style card sleeves
containing the 4 discs plus booklet containing photos and audio
notes housed in an exterior slip case.
Threshold Soundscape,
Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part One
Pictures of a City, Peace
Radical Action (to Unseat The Hold of Monkey Mind)
Meltdown, Radical Action II
Level Five, Epitaph
The Hell Hounds of Krim
The ConstruKction of Light
city of Miracles
Red, VROOOM
Banshee Legs Bell Hassle
Easy Money, Interlude
The Letters, Sailor's Tale
The Light of Day
The Talking Drum
Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part Two
Starless
Devil Dogs of Tessellation Row
In the Court of the Crimson King
21st Century Schizoid Man
Suitable Grounds for the Blues
One More Red Nightmare
