The 21st Century Guide to King Crimson, Vol. 1: 1969-1974 [Box set]

This 4-CD set covers the first period of Crimson activity from their explosive seminal debut in 1969 through to the incredible Fripp/Wetton/Bruford/Cross years of the mid-70's.

CD1 covers Crimsons first four albums (In The Court..., In The Wake..., Lizard and Islands), more than adequately showcasing the highlights of each of the albums, and including the excellent and previously hard to find B-side 'Groon'. The more exceptional albums are very well-covered, whereas the less successful (critically and commercially) albums are less well-covered, to the first-time listeners benefit.

CD2 is a compilation concert of the Crimson live incarnations in 1969 and 1971. The performances on this CD are nothing short of inspirational and offer a first-rate view of what both era's bands were capable of.

CD3 though is the best overall disc. Perhaps the best compilation of the most successful Crimson incarnation, this covers the superb 'Larks Tongues In Aspic' through 'Starless And Bible Black' to the Nirvana inspiring 'Red'. This offers up the best of this era's studio Crimsoning, although the full version of Starless would have been the icing on the cake.

CD4 is the compilation disc of the 1972/73/74 line-up live in concert, and is quite simply stunning. The performances of the recorded material is exemplary, whilst the improvisations are incredible and simply mind-boggling as to why they were never given a wider release.

Put simply, this is the best compilation of King Crimson from 1969 to 1974. Their subsequent material in the 80's, 90's and the new millenium sounded vastly different to these recordings and do belong on a different compilation. Their sound is different and therefore should be on a different collection, but the feel and personality continued. On top of this, the remastering is the best I have heard on any re-masters, and sounds like they could have been recorded yesterday on a 32-track system.

Put simply, why can't all box-sets be this good? My only gripe is the abridged version of 'Starless', other than that this is a 5-star set.

The advancement of remastering technology and years of developing archival live recordings within Fripp's own record company DGM has meant that this box set should offer the best sounding and definitive overview of the life and times of King Crimson. Well does it? Of course the answer to that is always going to be subjective. It's impossible to produce something like this from Crimson's vast catalogue and please everyone. But this retrospective is not meant for the die-hard Crimson fan, but new listeners and those looking for something general which represents the band. In that respect this volume serves that function quite adequately. All the most noted compositions are represented here, including most of the first album, "In the Court of the Crimson King", through to the best from the rip-roaring finale "Red", though "Starless" from that album is sadly represented here in an abridged form. On a personal note, there is only a snatch of "Bolero" from "Lizard", a highly undervalued album which I know Fripp doesn't care for much, which is a shame. Also, why include the brief "Tuning Up" from "Island", which is literally the orchestra tuning up!

The live CD's are also pretty representative of where live Crimson were, though the inclusion of tracks from "Earthbound", which is sonically primitive to say the least, could have been replaced by much better sounding tracks. But the CD representing the 73-74 band is the real deal. This is explosive stuff, especially "Asbury Park" which is a slightly extended version to that on USA and an excellent rendition of "Easy Money". During the instrumental break of "21st Century Schizoid Man", the band are really on fire and blow the roof off. This CD in its' right proves what a formidable live beast King Crimson were during that period and should leave any casual listener thirsting for more.

The packaging of this box set is very nice, furnished with a typical PJ Crook painting and the booklet is developed along the lines of that in the "Frame by Frame" box, including lists of all the band gigs, timelines including quotes from magazines and music papers and lots of archival photographs, all reproduced to a very high standard.

So, all in all this box set does what it says on the tin, a good guide of studio and live Crimson for the casual and curious listener. Nothing more and nothing less.