King Crimson: Discipline (Steven Wilson & Robert Fripp remix, 200g) [PANEGYRIC]

Why you'll love it

This 200g pressing uses Steven Wilson and Robert Fripp's 40th anniversary stereo mixes, made in England with an embossed sleeve and etched runouts. It's the album that relaunched King Crimson with Adrian Belew and Tony Levin, with "Elephant Talk" and "Frame by Frame."

This edition

• 200g vinyl
• 40th anniversary stereo mix by Steven Wilson and Robert Fripp
• Embossed jacket
• Branded inner sleeve
• Pressed in England
• Remastered

About the album

In 1974 Robert Fripp declared King Crimson completely over, for ever and ever. Seven years later he had a new band called Discipline, and after a few gigs he conceded it was King Crimson after all. Bill Bruford came back on drums, and two Americans joined: Adrian Belew, fresh from Frank Zappa, David Bowie and Talking Heads, and Tony Levin on bass and Chapman Stick, whom Fripp knew from Peter Gabriel's sessions.

The sound was new too, with interlocking guitars drawn from Indonesian gamelan and minimalism and a post-punk snap. On "Frame by Frame" Belew loops a melody while Fripp phases the same line against it, "Elephant Talk" has Belew's guitar trumpeting like the title animal, "Matte Kudasai" (Japanese for "please wait") is a dreamy ballad, and "Thela Hun Ginjeet" and "Indiscipline" crank up the tension. The band co-produced with Rhett Davies.

It helped lay the groundwork for what became known as post-progressive rock, and players still pull apart those guitar parts today. Fripp's sleeve motto says discipline is never an end in itself, which is roughly what we tell ourselves about alphabetising the prog section.

Also at Kops: more King Crimson on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Discipline Global Mobile / Panegyric (cat# KCLLP8), a reissue of the 1981 album.