The long-awaited King Crimson Collector’s Club 42 is now available for pre-order here.

Taken together with The Champaign-Urbana Sessions (CLUB21), the work-in-progress sketches, outtakes, bright ideas, dead-ends and cul-de-sacs gathered on Rehearsals & Blows (May-November 1983) provide a kind of counter-factual, alternative history to King Crimson’s catalogue; a shadow album that traces those points where things came together or fell apart in the trying, where ideas either bloomed or withered.

Even at the best of times, when a group is riding high and firing on all creative cylinders, the process can still be something of a struggle. So when a band is in a less-than-optimal state, things can be tough. Very tough indeed. As Tony Levin notes, “In the studio it’s always a battle; wielding guitars like weapons to fight the clock, the headphone mix, budget, record company demands - we struggle to capture some of the magic that happens effortlessly every night in front of an audience.”

Speaking after the release of Three Of A Perfect Pair in 1984, Bill Bruford commented upon the album that took the group a year not so much to make as it did to find. “It did take quite a while...It’s kind of the fourth album with this version of the band. You see, we recorded one LP and more or less dumped it. We couldn’t quite see the way it was working out. When we reconvened the problems we had just evaporated! Sometimes, time is the only thing you need. Just to get away. And then suddenly the project was on its feet again and we knew where it was going and what to do.”

CLUB42
King Crimson
Rehearsals & Blows
May - November 1983

1 Adrian And Robert
2 Slow Groove
3 Funk Groove
4 Sleepish
5 Slow Sleepless
6 An Entry Of The Crims
7 Sacramento
8 Perfecting Three Of A Perfect Pair
9 Open Hearted
10 Working On Sleepless
11 Easy To Solo Over
12 Do You Dig Me?
13 Industrial
14 Steinberger Melody
15 Shidare Zakura