King Crimson
King Crimson - Beat
£22.95
Cut from the 30th anniversary masters series - overseen and approved by Robert Fripp - Beat is the tenth release in the King Crimson LP reissue series.
Beat was released in June 1982 just eight months after the 80s Crimson line-up's debut Discipline. It marked the first occasion where a King Crimson line-up had remained intact for a two album stretch and was also the first album by the band to employ a separate producer (Rhett Davies).
The juxtaposition of lyrics heavily influenced by 1950s beat luminaries Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady, the complex polyrhythmic musical textures of the 1980s Crimson, the strength of the songs and the cohesion of the studio performances, all helped the album chart upon release in the US and the UK.
Songs like Waiting Man, Neal and Jack and Me and Heartbeat became firm fan favourites (Heartbeat, in particular, was an FM radio regular in the US and even merited a promo film shot for the then-emerging music TV market).
As ever, Crimson was pushing forward, looking for new methods to communicate internally as a band and externally with an audience. It was, perhaps, the nearest King Crimson ever came to the rock music ‘mainstream’.
200g edition, cut at Loud Mastering by Jason Mitchell.
A
Neal and Jack and Me
Heartbeat
Sartori in Tangier
Waiting Man
B
Neurotica
Two Hands
The Howler
Requiem
