Post Description

Released in 1974 after King Crimson had “ceased to exist”, Red remains a remarkably powerful document of a group quitting at the top of its game. The grinding crunch of Red appears to anticipate much of the heavy metal scene whilst the epic Starless brings together several strands of the group’s musical history. 
 
Including powerful contributions from Ian McDonald, Mel Collins, David Cross, Mark Charig and Robin Miller, Red forms what is arguably the definitive statement of the ‘70s period Crimson. Bill Bruford recently described the album in just five words: Prescient, short and bass heavy.” 
 
The impact of Red...
A life-long King Crimson fan, 40th Anniversary Editions producer, Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson, offers his thoughts on Red. 
 
“For me the record is dominated by the opening and closing tracks. I think you can almost argue that these two tracks are the record. I remember the first time I heard this music was on the Young Person’s Guide To King Crimson and one whole side of that record was Red and Starless. I remember thinking this must be the best album in the world, and then buying the album and being kind of disappointed a little bit about the rest of it. I’ve grown to like it very much, and the other three tracks are terrific too, but I think these two tracks are landmarks, real masterpieces. 
 
It’s the record where you can say King Crimson and progressive rock has finally shaken off any vestige of the Tolkien-esque aspects where the language is quite flowery. You can still hear some of that on albums like Larks’ Tongues In Aspic on tracks such as Book of Saturday. Here, this is almost looking forwards to punk rock, flushing away the last remnants of the flower power, Sgt Peppers type music. 
 
It’s actually quite a nihilistic record. When Fripp changes the repeated note to the tritone or ‘devil’s interval’ in Starless it sounds wrong but it works so well. There’s more of that "fuck you" attitude. You can’t imagine anything further away from the prog rock manifesto. Can you imagine Yes playing something like that? No way! Even the Floyd, although there music was quite simple they would never have played anything that discordant and so relentlessly. 
 
What I hear on Red is the best representation of that line-up in the studio. They seem to have finally realised how to get most of that live energy onto tape. The thing that occurs to me the most about is that the more members this line-up lost, the heavier it got. This album is in effect a power trio record, very often it’s just guitar, bass and drums but the sound is just huge.”
 
Track Listing
01.Red
02.Fallen Angel
03.One More Red Nightmare
04.Providence
05.Starless
 
King Crimson
Robert Fripp - Guitar and Mellotron
Bill Bruford - Percussives
John Wetton - Bass and Voice
Additional Contributions:
Marc Charig - Cornet
Mel Collins - Soprano Sax
David Cross - Violin, Mellotron and Electric Piano
Ian McDonald -alto sax
Robin Miller - oboe
 
Ripping info
Original Disc - DVDAExplorer for Mac - Ripped to WAV
XLD for Mac to FLAC level 4, FLAC version 1.2.1