King Crimson 40th Anniversary

The CD features the original album, plus three extra tracks (stunning pre-overdub trio versions of Red & Fallen Angel and the full version of Providence).
King Crimson fell apart once more, seemingly for the last time, as David Cross walked away during the making of this album. It became Robert Fripp's last thoughts on this version of the band, a bit noiser overall but with some surprising sounds featured, mostly out of the group's past - Mel Collins' and Ian McDonald's saxes, Marc Charig's cornet, and Robin Miller's oboe, thus providing a glimpse of what the 1972-era King Crimson might've sounded like handling the later group's repertory (which nearly happened). Indeed, Charig's cornet gets just about the best showcase it ever had on a King Crimson album, and the truth is that few intact groups could have gotten an album as good as Red together…

King Crimson opened 1970 scarcely in existence as a band, having lost two key members (Ian McDonald and Michael Giles), with a third (Greg Lake) about to leave. Their second album - largely composed of Robert Fripp's songwriting and material salvaged from their stage repertory ("Pictures of a City" and "The Devil's Triangle") - is actually better produced and better sounding than their first. Surprisingly, Fripp's guitar is not the dominant instrument here: The Mellotron, taken over by Fripp after McDonald's departure - and played even better than before - still remains the band's signature. The record doesn't tread enough new ground to precisely rival In the Court of the Crimson King. Fripp, however, has made an impressive show of transmuting material that worked on stage ("Mars" aka "The Devil's Triangle") into viable studio creations, and "Cadence and Cascade" may be the prettiest song the group ever cut…

King Crimson - Islands (1971) {40th Anniversary Series, 2010} [CD + DVD-A]
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC+CUE+LOG -> 362 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 151 Mb
DVD-A | ISO | Audio: MLP: 5.1 / 2.0 (24/96) | DTS: 5.1 (24/48) | LPCM: 2.0 (24/48) | 6.22 GB
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 42 Mb
© 2010 DGM / Robert Fripp | KCSP4
Rock / Art Rock / Prog Rock

On ISLANDS, Crimson left behind the formula they followed for their first three albums, setting off for more adventurous avenues of expression. If his leadership were ever in question before, Robert Fripp had emerged as the mastermind of the group by this point. There's a much looser feel here, and even when essaying a delicate ballad like "Formentera Lady" or the gorgeous title track, jazzy bass and piano lines and free-wheeling percussion keep things from getting too settled. The jazz influence always present in Crimson grew far more pronounced on ISLANDS via saxman Mel Collins and pianist Keith Tippett.

The CD features a new stereo mix plus bonus tracks including the ultra-rare (performed once only) Guts on My Side.
Starless and Bible Black is even more powerful and daring than its predecessor, Larks' Tongues in Aspic, with jarring tempo shifts, explosive guitar riffs, and soaring, elegant, and delicate violin and Mellotron parts scattered throughout its 41 minutes, often all in the same songs. The album was on the outer fringes of accessible progressive rock, with enough musical ideas explored to make Starless and Bible Black more than background for tripping the way Emerson, Lake & Palmer's albums were. "The Night Watch," a song about a Rembrandt painting, was, incredibly, a single release, although it was much more representative of the sound that Crimson was abandoning than where it was going in 1973-1974…

King Crimson - The Elements: 2014 Tour Box (2014) [2CD] {Robert Fripp}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 831 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 316 Mb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (png) -> 411 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2014 Discipline Global Mobile / Robert Fripp / Panegyric | KCTB14
Rock / Progressive Rock / Art Rock

The Elements Of King Crimson is a special limited edition 'tour box' created exclusively for sale at King Crimson's concerts and via the band's official online outlets. The set contains a 24 page tour booklet and two CDs containing extracts, elements from studio recordings, alternate takes, live tracks, rehearsals and finished recordings from 1969 - 2014 (much of it previously unreleased on CD).

Islands is the fourth studio album by English band King Crimson, released in December 1971 on the record label Island. Islands is the only studio album to feature the 1971-1972 touring line-up of Robert Fripp, Mel Collins, Boz Burrell and Ian Wallace. This would be the last album before an entirely new group would record the trilogy of Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Starless and Bible Black and Red between 1973-1974…

Released in December 1970, King Crimson's third studio album, Lizard, is often viewed as an outlier in the pioneering British prog outfit's nearly half-century discography. It's not easily grouped with 1969's stunning In the Court of the Crimson King debut and 1970 follow-up In the Wake of Poseidon, and along with 1971's Islands it's considered a transitional release on the band's path toward the relative stability of the Larks' Tongues in Aspic (1973), Starless and Bible Black (1974), and Red (1974) trilogy. Plus, the Lizard sessions were difficult and the core group lineup acrimoniously collapsed immediately afterward, as bandleader/guitarist Robert Fripp, with lyricist Peter Sinfield, continued brave efforts to save King Crimson from disintegrating as the group's lengthy history was just getting underway.