Red King Crimson

Spurred on by Robert Fripp's innovative guitar work, arguably the definitive exponents of British progressive rock.
If there is one group that embodies progressive rock, it is King Crimson. Led by guitar/Mellotron virtuoso Robert Fripp, during its first five years of existence the band stretched both the language and structure of rock into realms of jazz and classical music, all the while avoiding pop and psychedelic sensibilities. The absence of mainstream compromises and the lack of an overt sense of humor ultimately doomed the group to nothing more than a large cult following, but made their albums among the most enduring and respectable of the prog rock era.

Radical Action to Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind is a box set by King Crimson, released on 2 September 2016. The box set contains recordings from the group's 2015 tours of Japan, Canada and France. Some of the material has not been performed live since the 1970s, although the songs were rearranged to suit the current line-up…

This Japanese box set contains three consecutive entries in King Crimson's live and studio archival releases. The specific volumes in question are the tenth, 11th, and 13th from Discipline Global Mobile's Collectors' Club mail-order-only series covering Live in Central Park, NYC '74, the pre-Krim Discipline: Live at Moles Club, 1981, and the last gasp of the '90s double-trio incarnation on the Nashville Rehearsals, 1997. The July 1, 1974, concert in Central Park was the final King Crimson performance by the '70s quartet. While the recording is very good - not great - the group's spirited musical antics more than make up for any lack of audio fidelity. With the notable exception of "21st Century Schizoid Man," the band draws primarily from material on the Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Starless and Bible Black, and Red albums, respectively…

King Crimson will release another one of their mega box sets in May. Heaven & Earth is the seventh in their ongoing series and focuses on the period from December 1997 to August 2008.

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…

Containing 1CD per year of live material taken from 2014-2018, Audio Diary features King Crimson in its ideal environment - recorded live.