King Crimson – Islands

High quality 200 gram vinyl reissue of ‘Islands’. The album’s return to the 12″ vinyl format is newly cut from masters approved by Robert Fripp. Manufactured on 200 gram super-heavyweight vinyl and housed in a reprint of the original sleeve, with lyrics insert. This edition also contains bonus MP3 codes giving access to a download of a transfer of an original 1971 pressing – in this case taken from Robert Fripp’s personal file copy of the album. ‘Islands’ was King Crimson’s fourth studio album. First released in 1971, it was recorded at London’s Command Studios in between numerous live gigs by the then newly-formed incarnation of the group. Augmented by string and woodwind players, as well as a female vocalist (the only occasion in the band’s 45 year history), ‘Islands’ builds upon material that possesses the familiar Crimson DNA as well as a new, distinctive identity all its own. Though pastoral in mood across much the album, ‘Ladies Of The Road’ presents an atypical blues-orientated track, while ‘The Sailor’s Tale’ contains one of Robert Fripp’s most celebrated guitar solos. Shredding the rulebook, as it goes, it sounds utterly unlike anything previously heard on a Crimson album. Fripp himself observes “The solo was, and is, from some other world” Ultimately the guitar solo and its clattering coda is the leap from the symphonic and jazz stylings of the earlier albums into a spikier metallic soundworld that wouldn’t be fully realised until the next studio album, Larks’ Tongues In Aspic.