Get all your news in one place.

100's of premium titles.
One app.

Get all your news in one place.

100's of premium titles. One news app.

FOUND: 2 | Mind Blowing Facts

“We started each day by doing yoga and breathing exercises. Then we took mushrooms and it got a little too psychedelic!” The prog duo who lost their label for being too weird, and decided to get even weirder

Rush, Yes and King Crimson inspired them to confound expectations and create a three-album arc of otherworldly spirituality – in an era when, they believe, there’s no way to win the music industry game

Louder

"Frequently melancholy and austere, this is music that rewards active listening rather than offering up easily consumed hooks or sing-alongs":Steven Wilson seeks the sweet spot between pop precision and progressive wizardry on Hand. Cannot. Erase.

Inspired by a tragic modern story, Steven Wilson's Hand. Cannot. Erase. is often hailed as his masterpiece. But is it?

Louder

“I saw a recent video on YouTube on the 10 precursors to heavy metal, and Schizoid Man wasn’t among them. That’s absurd”: Robert Fripp explains how King Crimson paved the way for heavy metal

Robert Fripp says the band doesn't get enough credit for its hard-hitting groundwork

Guitar World

From analysis to the latest developments in health,
read the most diverse news in one place.

“He was unable to write something with delight in it. Suffering battle fatigue, he wrote of asking what it’s like back home. It’s epic”: William Shatner’s surprising Christmas album with Jethro Tull, Yes and King Crimson alumni

The Star Trek icon gets silly and serious in turns as he discusses what the season means to him, the secret to living long and prospering, and the presents Kirk and Spock might give each other

Louder

“Robert said, ‘Would you be prepared to play bass?’ And I thought, ‘Four strings, six strings... what could be the problem?’”: Greg Lake started out as a guitarist – before being convinced by Robert Fripp to switch to bass when joining King Crimson

Lake went on to form Emerson, Lake & Palmer – ELP – with keyboardist Keith Emerson and drummer Carl Palmer, creating one of rock’s first super-groups

Guitar World

King Crimson affiliates BEAT announce one-off London show for June

Adrian Belew, Danny Carey, Tony Levin and Steve Vai will play their first UK show as BEAT in June

Louder

“We heard King Crimson synchronised music with visuals at gigs. I thought we could use that, since we didn’t have Mick Jagger to run around or anything”: Remembering Rick Davies, from tramping around Germany to leading Supertramp around the world

Former colleagues recall the life and times of a driven but introverted musician who endured tough challenges to see his lifelong vision achieved – and updated his joke book while he did it

Louder

Read news from The Economist, FT, and more,
with one subscription

“It was an awful mistake to overlook his album. But you could be excused for not sticking with it”: Fired by King Crimson, this prog poet assembled a group of A-list colleagues and took them on a trip into the unknown. They got lost – or so it seemed

His only solo release merged Genesis, Greenslade and Soft Machine vibes with an additional experimental edge. But the real beauty is that it couldn’t have been made any other time than the early 70s

Louder

Robert Fripp dons Satanic nun costume as Toyah sings an AC/DC classic and we may never sleep again

Just another Halloween-themed afternoon in the Fripp-Willcox kitchen

Louder

“When the band played, we sold out to 14,000 people a night. If I play, I’m not sure 14 people will turn up”: He's fought off a crisis of confidence, but the frontman of one of prog’s greatest groups still doesn’t know who he is

Adopted soon after birth, his search for clues to his identity inspired a book which then inspired an album – and there’s a reason it’s not a completely prog work

Louder

“A fascinating opportunity to look under the hood of the songs and reimagine the strangeness they could conjure”: King Crimson’s In The Wake Of Poseidon and Lizard ultimate editions

Undervalued 1970 albums, created during period of upheaval, are presented for reinterpretation with help from Steven Wilson and David Singleton

Louder

“Every working player knows a day will come when something goes wrong with their financial affairs. They’ll need an instrument for that day”: Robert Fripp on the guitars he’s kept, and the one he bought with no intention of playing

The King Crimson mastermind is best known for his ’59 Les Paul Custom, and there’s a reason most of his key instruments have been Gibsons – but he has a few “honorable mentions” too, like the '57 Strat Robin Trower gave him...

Guitar World

“If it gets a bit tense we chill out with a joke. He’s good at that. Most of our messages are in a West Country dialect!” Thom Yorke isn’t the very serious character you may have thought, says one collaborator

Electronic artist reveals Radiohead vocalist is more likely to say “Wasson there, bey?” than “What’s your problem, eh?” – and their new album might just contain a pinch of King Crimson and Gentle Giant

Louder

“Robert Fripp is a really diddly-diddly man, all the riff stuff, and that works to an extent. But you need to put that in a context to make it accessible”: The secret to making King Crimson work by Peter Giles, the bassist who helped make it happen

He recalls The Cheerful Insanity Of Giles Giles & Fripp and the Brondesbury Tapes to 21st Century Schizoid Band, making music with his wife and winning athletics medals at 80

Louder

Get all your
news in one place.

100's of premium titles.
One news app.

Louder

“If you see him live, it’s insane! He’s just ripping his heart out in front of you”: King Crimson’s Jakko Jakszyk on his favourite prog vocalist – also loved by David Bowie, Johnny Rotten and the guy who did The Sooty Show

Known for a Marmite voice, personal songwriting and a powerful sense of drama, his influence runs deeper than most people realise

Louder

“If you strip away the images you could put us beside King Crimson. The musicality and ambition would fit. But for us it’s 50 per cent about music, 50 per cent about hair”: Sparks’ commitment to silliness is very prog indeed

Ron Mael (the operatic one) and Russell Mael (the staring one) never discussed being different; but as LA brothers inspired by British prog and glam, they always were. They only rule they made was: “Shake up the universe”

Louder

“A truly virtuosic and deeply musical homage to King Crimson’s legacy – hugely entertaining”: BEAT LIVE captures the joy of Adrian Belew, Steve Vai, Tony Levin and Danny Carey reviving and evolving the 80s

The quartet’s relaxed yet enthusiastic approach means they never sound indulgent as they segue between pachyderm-impersonating dissonance and languorous ambience

Louder

“There’s inevitably repeated songs from Asia, King Crimson and UK, but plenty of variations in arrangement – and he’s in fine voice throughout”: John Wetton’s Concentus II is 10 discs of sumptuous live performance

Ongoing retrospective series revisits his solo era of the 90s

Get all your
news in one place.

100's of premium titles.
One news app.

Louder

King Crimson offshoot Beat share new live clip of Thela Hun Ginjeet

Adrian Belew, Danny Carey, Tony Levin and Steve Vai will release Beat Live in September

Louder

“I felt the stage fright because the band just wasn’t good enough. I said, ‘This will be our last record.’ Then things began to take off”: Even lockdown couldn’t dampen The Pineapple Thief’s spirits when they released Versions Of The Truth

It may have been the 13th album by Bruce Soord’s band, but he regarded is as their third, after drummer Gavin Harrison’s arrival changed everything

Louder

“Utterly idiosyncratic and experimental, possessed of a frighteningly intense energy”: Throwing Muses’ debut album remains one of the proggiest and best albums of the 80s

Astonishingly, Kristin Hersh and her band were still in their teens when they released their first collection of fractured narratives and multipart, chorus-free arrangements

Louder

Mud, mayhem and four-hour Grateful Dead sets: The chaotic story of Weeley and Bickershaw, the early 70s festivals that time forgot

Not every festival could be Woodstock or the Isle Of Wight

Guitar World

“Steve Vai walked me through the process – he’s had it done twice. He introduced me to one of the best surgeons in the US”: Adrian Belew on his carpal tunnel fears and recovery, working with Vai and Frank Zappa, and his next musical adventure

As he recovers from surgery, the progressive guitar icon draws a line from Frank Zappa through Talking Heads, King Crimson and Beat, explains his synergy with Steve Vai, and hints at the pedals that will drive his future creations

Guitar World

“It is impossible for me to adapt to that role”: Classic rock supergroup parts ways with their new guitarist – after just one gig

Both parties realized that it wasn’t the match they thought it looked to be on paper

Louder

King Crimson affiliates Beat release live video for classic Frame By Frame

Starring Steve Vai, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and Danny Carey, Frame By Frame comes from the upcoming album Beat Live, out next month

1 2 3 4 5

People

From analysis to the latest developments in health,
read the most diverse news in one place.

Organisations

Read news from The Economist, FT, and more,
with one subscription

Topics

Places

Fourteen days free

Download the app

One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.