King Crimson Red (50th Anniversary Edition) Import 200g 2LP

"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

"It's impossible to quantify the effect that this band has had on contemporary musicians." – Steve Vai

King Crimson's explsovie 1974 album Red primarily revolves around the raw power trio of Robert Fripp, Bill Bruford and John Wetton. David Cross, Mel Collins, Ian McDonald, Robin Miller and Mark Charig make guest appearances on this powerhouse of an album.

Taking the music to new levels of clarity and power, Red was one of the earliest mixes undertaken by Steven Wilson in 2009 and King Crimson was the first of a number of classic bands and artists to be mixed by Steven so it's entirely appropriate that he return, some 15 years later, to take the album into the Dolby Atmos era.

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

LP2 consists of a complete album's worth of Elemental Mixes by long-time King Crimson producer (and 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 and utilizing 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."

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 and (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."