Best King Crimson Album?

[crimsonfrippy]

Thrak

Three of a Perfect Pair

Red

Discipline

In the Court of the Crimson King

Larks Tongue in Aspic

Beat

 

 

Cheers,

 

frippy

 

Thrak, Three of a Perfect Pair, Discipline AND Beat are ahead of Lizard? Really???

 

I got into them in the early 80s so I'm sure my choices reflect that!

 

Lizard is great too! All Crimson is great! :D-13:

[drbirdsong]

Just got excited. There is another box set coming. It is aptly titled The Road To Red. There was no tour for Red so we will get the concerts leading up to it instead. They had already been playing some of it live. Ian McDonald came back and Wetton wanted him to rejoin the band. There could have been a some very interesting music to come, but Fripp pulled the plug.

 

The Road To Red

:: Posted by Sid Smith on Fri., Aug 2, 2013

The Road To Red is now available for pre-order via Inner Knot here and at Burning Shed.

http://www.dgmlive.com/diary/photos/R2Rcover1.jpg

 

Between April and July 1974 King Crimson embarked on a tour of Canada and America which has come to be recognised as one of the most powerful series of concerts performed not just by Fripp, Cross, Wetton and Bruford but by any band of the era.

 

The band, who had been rarely off the road - except to record studio albums - chose to perform a selection of recent material from the then newly released Starless And Bible Black, older fan favourites, newly written/then unrecorded material & nightly improvisations at a level described by many eye-witnesses and observers as “the most intense” gigs they’d ever attended.

 

A single live LP “USA” was issued in 1975, a year after the band split but failed to convey the full extent of how ferocious a beast King Crimson was in full-flight. No other band blended powerful rock with an ability to turn in epic improvisations of immense subtlety or strength.

 

Many of the shows on this final tour had been recorded, either professionally to multi-track tape, or on the band’s stereo cassette feed from the mixing desk. These remained unheard until 1992 when selected highlights were released in 1992 on the 4 CD boxed set, The Great Deceiver.

 

Now The Road To Red offers a comprehensive overview of this final tour and at last does justice to a group who were operating at the very height of their powers.

 

Every soundboard quality recording known to exist is presented with audio fully restored, all released on CD for the first time. There are also five complete concerts, drawn from multi-track recordings, alongside the restored audio bootleg of the band’s final show from New York and a new stereo mix of “Red” by Robert Fripp and Steven Wilson undertaken in 2012.

 

A total of 16 concerts are featured across 20 discs, with the studio “Red” as the 21st CD.

 

The set also features:

 

A DVD containing a high resolution stereo presentation of “USA” (in all mixes) and the new stereo mix of “Red”

 

2 Blu-Ray discs containing the five full length multi-track concert recordings (newly transferred at the highest resolution available from the original analogue Dolby SR source mix-down tapes & presented in 24/192

DTS-HD master sound), new & original stereo versions of “Red” and the existing 5.1 multi-channel mixes of the album presented in 24/96 DTS-HD also feature on Blu-Ray.

 

With a fully illustrated album sized booklet featuring previously unseen photos & a wealth of newly written material + postcards, replicas of hand-written set lists, album prints of the “USA” & “Red” covers & other memorabilia, this is an essential release for King Crimson fans.

 

Full tracklisting details will be announced later.

 

 

* * * * *

 

For those who find the prospect of this much Crimson in a box to be too much Crimson, there’s always the option of opting for the 2CD edition which also contains the 2013 stereo mix of Red which can also be found over at Burning Shed and again at Inner Knot

 

 

 

Road To Red Layaway Plan

:: Posted by Sid Smith on Thu., Aug 8, 2013

Inner Knot are offering an interest-free layaway plan for The Road To Red Box Set.

http://www.dgmlive.com/diary/photos/R2Rcover1.jpg

 

 

For more details please contact mailorderdgm@aol.com.

[vinciedaltrey]

In the Court of the Crimson King and In the Wake of Poseidon--- solely because of Greg Lake amazing vocals

[Texas King]

For me only these 2 KC albums matter:

1.ITCOTCK

2.Red

[ytserush]

For me only these 2 KC albums matter:

1.ITCOTCK

2.Red

 

Those two matter for me too.

 

And the rest of them matter for me as well.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

I have now listened to 4 of them! And I want more, but that will do for a ranking for now:

 

Red

Lizard

In The Court Of The Crimson King

In The Wake Of Poseidon

 

the more I listen, the more I hear how everything seems to be leading up to Red. While it's often too abrasive and dejected for my mood, Red seems to be the most tightly wound, efficiently designed, and chillingly executed of their records to me. Each of the other three seems to alternate between taking things perhaps a step too far (not that that's usually a bad thing, I tend to love excess) or not quite far enough (like Poseidon coasting a bit too much on Court's formula and not always playing to its strengths), but Red manages to shock, disturb, and addict the listener with its excellent balance of freak out and restraint. It also just has the best sound/production of the four, which always helps (though I dig the extreme juxtapositions of the first three). It's figural passages feed off of its atmosphere, and that atmosphere is kept interesting by the figural passages. The only I'm not too keen on is the length of Providence. I like the ideas they play, and it's very important to the atmosphere of the record, but to me it just doesn't really cover enough ground to justify its full length. Between Providence, Moonchild, and the instrumental bits of Lizard, I'll take Lizard every time. It's constant gradual movement from folk to jazz to rock to circus music (the last little bit) is entrancing.

[ytserush]

I have now listened to 4 of them! And I want more, but that will do for a ranking for now:

 

Red

Lizard

In The Court Of The Crimson King

In The Wake Of Poseidon

 

the more I listen, the more I hear how everything seems to be leading up to Red. While it's often too abrasive and dejected for my mood, Red seems to be the most tightly wound, efficiently designed, and chillingly executed of their records to me. Each of the other three seems to alternate between taking things perhaps a step too far (not that that's usually a bad thing, I tend to love excess) or not quite far enough (like Poseidon coasting a bit too much on Court's formula and not always playing to its strengths), but Red manages to shock, disturb, and addict the listener with its excellent balance of freak out and restraint. It also just has the best sound/production of the four, which always helps (though I dig the extreme juxtapositions of the first three). It's figural passages feed off of its atmosphere, and that atmosphere is kept interesting by the figural passages. The only I'm not too keen on is the length of Providence. I like the ideas they play, and it's very important to the atmosphere of the record, but to me it just doesn't really cover enough ground to justify its full length. Between Providence, Moonchild, and the instrumental bits of Lizard, I'll take Lizard every time. It's constant gradual movement from folk to jazz to rock to circus music (the last little bit) is entrancing.

 

Sounds like you have an amazing journey ahead of you. While there may be a song or two that I'm not into here and there, they've never recorded a bad album and the live material is even more amazing. These days, I mainly just stick to the live performances.

[New_World_Man]

larks tongues in aspic for me.

[vaportrailer]

The Bruford Stuff (70s and 80s)

The M Giles stuff

Lizard

Islands

 

http://www.amiright.com/photoshops/images/album_1135180540.jpg

[New_World_Man]

larks tongues in aspic for me.

 

Other than that one my favorites are the first two and red and starless and bible black. I'm also kind of fond of the 80's era but haven't heard much of later ones.

Edited October 24, 2019 by New_World_Man

[stoopid]

THRAK and Red are the only albums I like most of the material. There's a lot of stuff o nthe remaining albums that doesn't interest me, and being that I like listening to albums from beginning to end (especially in the car) means I rarely listen to any of the remaining albums anymore.

[Prog snob]

The only I'm not too keen on is the length of Providence. I like the ideas they play, and it's very important to the atmosphere of the record, but to me it just doesn't really cover enough ground to justify its full length.

 

It's a live improv recorded in Providence in 1974 just a week or so before the Red sessions, not a piece written for the record. The original recording is longer. Based on what you have said, I suggest Islands next and going forward chronologically. It foreshadows the Bruford-Wetton era.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

The only I'm not too keen on is the length of Providence. I like the ideas they play, and it's very important to the atmosphere of the record, but to me it just doesn't really cover enough ground to justify its full length.

 

It's a live improv recorded in Providence in 1974 just a week or so before the Red sessions, not a piece written for the record. The original recording is longer. Based on what you have said, I suggest Islands next and going forward chronologically. It foreshadows the Bruford-Wetton era.

 

I knew it was live, but it still could have been edited to a more reasonable length. I'm guessing they didn't really have anything else to fill that time with though. It's not like it's bad, I just get tired of it after a while.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

I now own the first 7 albums! However I still have not spent enough time with my most recent purchase (Larks' Tongues In Aspic) to know where I'd rank it. It certainly wouldn't fall outside the top 5, but beyond that I'm really not sure. With time it could even be number 1! Anyway here are the six albums surrounding it in my order of preference:

 

1. Red

2. Islands

3. Lizard

4. In The Court Of The Crimson King

5. Starless And Bible Black

6. In The Wake Of Poseidon

 

I love what they were doing on Lizards and Islands. Just lots of rapid experimentation in tone, structure, dynamics, style, and pretty much everything else. That experimentalist approach carries right on through Larks' Tongues from what I can tell before they more or less strike a particular sound for Starless And Bible Black and Red (albeit two sides of the same coin). So I'd expect LTIA could easily fall around 2, 3 or 4 when I rank it.

[Entre_Perpetuo]

I was going to update my list after giving LTIA another close listen today, but I am still totally stumped on where to put it. It may be the most consistent album of the first 7, which is a huge compliment, and it probably has the best instrumentals of any KC album barring Red's title track...but I'm very unsure of how to rank an album where the instrumentals seem to be the real meat of the record in a catalogue who's biggest highlights have strong vocals for the most part. I suppose that's a dumb reason to not know where to rank it, but it really does throw me for a loop. It's definitely better than SABB and ITWOP, but I'm just not sure how far up it goes.

 

Oh well, it took me months if not a whole semester to figure out Red, so I suppose patience will be the key here. Really letting everything sink in and seeing how deep it sinks.

[condemned2bfree]

In The Court Of The Crimson.

Red

Thrak.

[Texas King]

Debut easily.