KING CRIMSON

Heaven & Earth: Live And In The Studio, 1997-2008 DGM

Latest box set covers the ProjeKcts, Crimson’s fractal explorations.

In prog, as in everything, there are certain timeless truths: Fairport Convention’s final encore is always Meet On The Ledge, Tool’s new album is always ‘nearly done’ [see News for, er, news on that – Reviews Ed], and King Crimson are, well, bloody overwhelming. To quote that lady from Game Of Thrones: “It is known, Khaleesi.” No matter how ambitious and demanding a prog band aim to be, Crimson exceed them. In their 50th anniversary year, there will be many celebrations, including 50 live gigs (plus one). Heaven & Earth is the seventh of Crimson’s mind-bogglingly rich box sets which will eventually take in every era of the band’s work. This volume centres on the 90s ProjeKcts off-shoots as well as revisited versions of The Construkction Of Light and The Power To Believe. It’s a Crimson fan’s delight: 18 CDs, four Blu-rays and two DVD-A discs, covering 11 years of new and live material.

Crimson fans, like all fans, fixate on certain line-ups and albums. Heaven & Earth gives the listener an opportunity to reappraise an era that, arguably, sits in the shadow of Crimson’s greater glories. The Reconstrukction Of Light offers a profound reworking of the original Construkction album. Reconstrukction shows how an album can wait for years for the world to catch-up. It’s often alarming, industrial metal explorations were too much for many in 2000; now it feels like it was doing the spade-work for bands like The Fierce

And The Dead. Pat Mastolotto’s new acoustic/electric drum track and a fresh mix from Don Gunn enable Reconstrukction to feel like a better studio partner for The Power To Believe, which always felt like a more completely realised offering. A remastered Believe is itself a rich and fearsome thing.

The sheer size of the box set gives space for every ProjeKct recording to be aired for the first time. It is intimidating, profound and revelatory. Four of the CDS and two Blu-rays are devoted to that era when the six Crimsons ‘fractalised’ into smaller groupings to better aid experimentation. It is a completist’s dream, with one CD devoted to the 30 shows from ProjeKct 2 alone. Here the band slowly interrogate a dozen-or-so tracks, over and over, altering their order and tone in search of their ultimate iteration. By turns crushing and subtle, Crimson’s live exploration make so-called ‘improv’ outfits like the Grateful Dead look moribund and clichéd.

Should anyone be intimidated by the box set’s nearreligious intensity, David Singleton and Prog’s very own Sid Smith supply some beautifully poised sleeve notes. Yes, this box set might be frightening, but it holds treasure that lasts.

IMPROV THAT MAKES THE

GRATEFUL DEAD SEEM MORIBUND AND CLICHÉD.