It could be argued that the first officially released King Crimson mash-ups, wherein one era of Crimson is juxtaposed with another, appeared when the chorus of The Court Of The Court Of The Crimson suddenly rose up out of the chaos and turbulence of the closing moments of The Devil’s Triangle from In The Wake Of Poseidon.
Such proto-sampling aside, the first timeline crossings proper were to be found on the Frame By Frame box. Released in 1991, it saw Adrian Belew’s vocals replacing those on the 1970 recording of Cadence And Cascade, while Tony Levin renewed the bass of the original Bolero from Lizard.
Here, Alex Mundy’s audio alchemy has Mel Collins and Gordon Haskell from 1970’s Poseidon sessions, spinning forward just over a decade to meet with Belew, Levin, Bruford, and Fripp as they recorded 1981’s recording of Matte Kudasai. The result is a series of happy accidents in a beguiling mix that goes some way towards answering the oft-posed question of what 80s KC might have sounded like had a woodwind player been invited to join.
