Prog April 2023

Named after the tour from which the performances were taken, "Music Is Our Friend" is an official bootleg featuring all of King Crimson's final performance in North America at Washington in September, 2021. This 2CD set is completed with four pieces from the first concert of the tour's second leg in Albany. Taken together, these tracks represent both a beginning and an end of a tour that took place despite almost insurmountable issues. Originally scheduled for 2020, postponed for a full year because of the pandemic, the tour began July in Florida as the latest Covid wave hit and the band moved across the country in a tour bus bubble. Following a two-week break due to scheduling conflicts, they returned to the road again, with the Zappa Band appearing nightly before Crimson.

Having held their ground during the tornado of punk, Surrey prog-rock stalwarts Camel began the 80s in style with Nude: an ambitious concept LP based on the true story of Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda, who believed World War II was still ongoing when he was rescued from a remote Philippine island in 1974. It would not be the last time Camel tackled political and emotional turmoil in the 80s, as 1984’s Stationary Traveller would go on to show.