36 Facts About King Crimson

King Crimson are a progressive rock band formed in 1968 in London, England.

King Crimson made their breakthrough on 5 July 1969 by playing the Rolling Stones free concert at Hyde Park, London before an estimated 500,000 people.

The debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King, was released in October 1969 on Island Records.

In contrast to the blues-based hard rock of the contemporary British and American scenes, King Crimson presented a more Europeanised approach that blended antiquity and modernity.

King Crimson later cited this as "quality control", with the idea that King Crimson would perform the "right" kind of music.

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In January and February 1973, King Crimson recorded Larks' Tongues in Aspic in London which was released that March.

The band's new sound was exemplified by the album's two-part title track – a significant change from what King Crimson had done before, the piece emphasized the sharp instrumental interplay of the band, and drew influence from modern classical music, noisy free improv, and even heavy metal riffing.

King Crimson felt the world was going to drastically change by 1981 and that he had to prepare for it.

In June 1982, King Crimson followed Discipline with Beat, the first King Crimson album recorded with the same band line-up as the album preceding it.

Bruford later said he lobbied Fripp last minute because he believed that King Crimson was very much "his gig", and that Fripp had come up with a philosophical explanation for utilizing both Mastelotto and himself later.

King Crimson toured the album from 28 September 1994 in Buenos Aires, Argentina; portions of these concerts were released on the double live CD set B'Boom: Live in Argentina in 1995.

King Crimson resumed touring in 1995 and into 1996; dates from October and November 1995 were recorded and released on the live album Thrakattak in May 1996, which is an hour of improvised music integrating sections from performances from the "THRAK" tour in the United States and Japan, mixed and arranged by Fripp's DGM partner, engineer David Singleton.

King Crimson toured to support both albums, including double bill shows with Tool.

King Crimson released their thirteenth album, The Power to Believe, in March 2003.

King Crimson toured in 2003 to support the album; recordings from it were used for the live album EleKtrik: Live in Japan.

New King Crimson formation was announced in 2007: Fripp, Belew, Levin, Mastelotto, and a new second drummer, Gavin Harrison.

King Crimson began another hiatus after the 40th Anniversary Tour.

In December 2010, Fripp wrote that the King Crimson "switch" had been setting to "off" since October 2008, citing several reasons for this decision.

Adrian Belew was not asked to take part, thus ending his 32-year tenure in King Crimson: Jakszyk took his place as singer and second guitarist.

In early 2014, King Crimson had no plans to record in the studio, instead playing "reconfigured" versions of past material.

On 2 June 2017, King Crimson released a new live EP named "Heroes", as a tribute to both the artist and the album featuring the song in question, both of which featured distinctive Robert Fripp guitar contributions throughout.

On 6 April 2019, it was announced at a press conference that Rieflin would take another break from King Crimson to attend to family matters, his place on keyboards for the 2019 50th anniversary tour would be taken by Theo Travis, better known as a saxophonist, Soft Machine member and occasional duo collaborator with Robert Fripp.

Since the early 2000s, several bands containing former, recent or current King Crimson members have toured and recorded, performing King Crimson music.

Between 2011 and 2014, Stick Men and Adrian Belew's Power Trio band joined forces to play and tour as The King Crimson ProjeKCt, covering the music made during the '80s and '90s.

King Crimson have been described musically as progressive rock, art rock, and post-progressive, with their earlier works being described as proto-prog.

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However, for their own compositions, King Crimson largely stripped away the blues-based foundations of rock music and replaced them with influences derived from classical composers.

The first incarnation of King Crimson played the Mars section of Gustav Holst's suite The Planets live and later the band used Mars as a foundation for the song "Devil's Triangle".

King Crimson initially displayed strong jazz influences, most obviously on its signature track "21st Century Schizoid Man".

For its 1994 reunion, King Crimson reassessed both the mid-1970s and 1980s approaches in the light of new technology, intervening music forms such as electronica, drum'n'bass and techno; and further developments in industrial music, as well as expanding the band's ambient textural content via Fripp's Soundscapes looping approach.

Rather than using the standard jazz or rock "jamming" format for improvisation, King Crimson improvisation is musicians collectively making creative decisions and contributions as the music is being played.

Similarly, King Crimson's improvised music is varied in sound and the band has been able to release several albums consisting entirely of improvised music, such as the THRaKaTTaK album, and the band's series of ProjeKcts.

King Crimson have been influential both on the early 1970s progressive rock movement and numerous contemporary artists.

King Crimson's influence extends to many bands from diverse genres, especially of the 1990s and 2000s.

In November 2012 the Flaming Lips in collaboration with Stardeath and White Dwarfs released a track-by-track reinterpretation of In the Court of the Crimson King entitled Playing Hide and Seek with the Ghosts of Dawn.

Colin Newman, of Wire, said he saw King Crimson perform many times, and that they influenced him deeply.

King Crimson have frequently been cited as pioneers of progressive metal and as an influence on bands of this genre, including Opeth, Mastodon, Between the Buried and Me, Leprous, Haken, the Ocean, Caligula's Horse, Last Chance to Reason, and Indukti.