King Crimson: In The Court Of The Crimson King (40th Anniv.) (LP)

" ...an uncanny masterpiece." - Pete Townshend, 1969. This quote will forever be associated with the album. It was used in advertising at the time of the album's release. It has, against so many false promises in advertising, as advertised, stood the test of time. It's easy to forget how quickly things moved for the first incarnation of King Crimson: They were formed on January 13, 1969; by April they were performing regularly at clubs like The Marquee and The Speakeasy and appearing with Tyrannosaurus Rex at the Lyceum; in May they recorded the first of two BBC sessions; in June the first (aborted) album recordings took place; and in early July - the big breakthrough - they played to an audience of 650,000 at Hyde Park as the opening act for the Rolling Stones. The album was recorded in August, signed to Island Records (and Atlantic in the U.S.), missed the Isle of Wight Festival due to illness/exhaustion, more gigs and a second BBC session in September, a unanimously praised Top 5 album in the U.K., followed by a Top 30 debut in the U.S. weeks later, then a tour of the U.S. - performing at legendary venues like the Boston Tea Party, the Kinetic Playground in Chicago, the Fillmore East in New York, and another appearance with the Rolling Stones - this time at a festival in Miami, and then, after a series of December shows at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, it was over as quickly as it had begun - the arc for the band from formation to breakup had lasted little more than 11 months. What remained was an iconic - both musically and in terms of cover artwork - self-produced debut album, a fearsome live reputation, and the sense of a band that had set its own agenda in its short existence. King Crimson returned in many different lineups over the years - each different from their predecessors, and with two shows at the Palladium in late 2018 and three shows at the Royal Albert Hall in June 2019, the current lineup has played to more people in London, the city where the band got its start, than at any other time since 1969, playing more 1969 material than any other lineup since the original. The current lineup has been called "the best live band in the world" on more than one occasion - something that has also been said about the original band fifty years later, the studio recordings of the first King Crimson are still uncanny masterpieces. In 2009, Steven Wilson and Robert Fripp began preparing a series of new mixes for King Crimson's 40th anniversary, which were then released as stereo and 5.1 mixes on CD/DVD-A sets. This series also formed the basis for the large-scale box sets that were issued starting in 2012 with numerous live recordings and unreleased material. Both the CD/DVD-A and box sets led to increased interest from the mainstream market for surround sound & comprehensive artist box sets, which had previously been reserved for a core audience mainly through dedicated online stores or retailers. The demand of the new mixes on vinyl led to the release of the two vinyl box sets, which covered the period 1969-1974, and included an alternate version of "Larks's Tongues in Aspic", a double LP of rarities (with the cover originally used for "Young Person's Guide to King Crimson"), and an expanded version of USA as a 2 LP set. These LPs are now available as limited edition single LP issues for a limited time.