King Crimson Flac

There’s a palpable sense of energy and enthusiasm from the audience captured on the tapes at this concert as King Crimson (sharing a European tour with then label band mates Roxy Music) take to the stage in Fréjus, France, in late Summer, 1982. With two albums’ worth of material to draw upon (Discipline, Oct 1981 & Beat, June 1982) & extensive touring that had already seen the band play concerts in the UK, Europe, USA & Japan, the live shows - as often with King Crimson – had a dynamism & punch that simply couldn’t be replicated in a recording studio. Add a pair of classic KC instrumentals, (Red & Larks’ Tongues in Aspic Part Two), to that mix & all the ingredients were there for a very special performance. Recorded initially for a video release, the audio from the concert has, inexplicably, never been issued as a standalone release. Nor has a live album from the 1980s line-up previously appeared on vinyl.

There’s a palpable sense of energy and enthusiasm from the audience captured on the tapes at this concert as King Crimson (sharing a European tour with then label band mates Roxy Music) take to the stage in Fréjus, France, in late Summer, 1982. With two albums’ worth of material to draw upon (Discipline, Oct 1981 & Beat, June 1982) & extensive touring that had already seen the band play concerts in the UK, Europe, USA & Japan, the live shows - as often with King Crimson – had a dynamism & punch that simply couldn’t be replicated in a recording studio. Add a pair of classic KC instrumentals, (Red & Larks’ Tongues in Aspic Part Two), to that mix & all the ingredients were there for a very special performance. Recorded initially for a video release, the audio from the concert has, inexplicably, never been issued as a standalone release. Nor has a live album from the 1980s line-up previously appeared on vinyl.

USA is a live album recorded towards the end of King Crimson's final US tour of the 70's in June 1974. It was issued as an epitaph for the band in Spring 1975 as a single album. It's critical reputation grew immeasurably in the intervening years to the point where a review of the 21ST CENTURY GUIDE TO KING CRIMSON boxed set in 2004 identified the album as the point "… where Fripp maps out the guitar blueprint for the entire post-punk movement".