“What I hear on Red is the best representation of 72-74 era line-up in the studio. In effect this is a power trio record and their sound is just huge.” – Steven Wilson

Also featured are a complete album’s worth of Elemental Mixes by long-time King Crimson producer (& band manager) David Singleton – using the original multi-track recordings to present a very different audio picture of the album, with greater separation of instruments & utilising many recorded elements recorded for, but not included in, the original mixes.

As King Crimson biographer Sid Smith puts it in his new notes for the album: “David Singleton’s elemental mixes pull the veil aside on the original sessions and act as a kind of alternative account, a Red that could have been, revealing the different passes and takes that the band undertook as well as those Collins, Charig and McDonald as they engaged with the material”.

Multiple new to disc tracks & studio takes – representing all material to survive from the recording sessions have also been mixed &/or mastered for inclusion, making this the most comprehensive overview of the album to be released.

Red was recorded immediately after King Crimson’s final US tour of 1974 & the anniversary edition reflects that by including all three Hi-Res Stereo mixes of the live album USA in its full concert versions. Also included are a quintet of audio restored bootlegs being issued on disc for the first time, alongside a bootleg of the band’s final US concert in New York in 1974 which Robert Fripp claimed was: “the first gig since the 1969 Crimson where the bottom of my spine registered ‘out of this world‘ to the same degree”.

In the decades since its release, Red has gone from being an album that was, upon release, under-promoted – as the band had already split up, to being one of the most lauded albums of its era & (after In The Court of the Crimson King), King Crimson’s biggest selling album. Writing in The Mojo Collection in 2000, John Bungey assessed Red as “that rarest of records, the sound of a line-up quitting while ahead”.

By the time King Crimson entered the studio in July 74, the band had spent the best part of two years on the road, recorded two albums along the way (‘Larks’ Tongues In Aspic’ & ‘Starless & Bible Black’) & shed two band members en route; percussionist Jamie Muir having quit early 1973, and violin/mellotron player David Cross at the end of the US tour just a week prior to the recording of Red.

Crimson had built a reputation as one of the tightest, most powerful bands on the rock circuit. Recording as a trio in Olympic studios in London, with one improv piece (Providence) drawn from that final US tour & with contributions from former members & friends on saxophones, violin, and oboe, the group produced the last Crimson studio album of the 70s & one of the decade’s masterpieces - Red.

Red emerged as a distillation of everything Crimson had been working towards live & in the studio between 72 and 74. In the half century since its release it has built an enviable, enduring reputation among fans & professional musicians alike – with bands from each succeeding decade citing it as an important influence.

As guitarist Steve Vai – a man about to undertake playing some of Fripp’s parts in Beat – a band devoted to playing King Crimson material - wrote in his online diary about the mid-1970s King Crimson (amidst a much longer piece eulogizing the band): “It’s impossible to quantify the effect that this band has had on contemporary musicians” – Steve Vai, July 2004

Whilst mixing the album for Dolby Atmos, Steven Wilson also prepared new stereo & 5.1 mixes. Those new stereo mixes are what appears as LP1 of this 2LP set.